The first presidential debate was akin to the Super Bowl for the pundit class, and all the referees declared Hillary Clinton the winner by unanimous knockout.
But Donald Trump also scored several damaging punches, particularly with the most important voting bloc for his chances to win the presidency: struggling and frustrated blue-collar workers across the Rust Belt states.
So, the real performance starts now in the critical stretch between the first and second debate—where poll trends have the potential of becoming more concrete and the majority of Americans who will actually vote begin paying full attention to both candidates' message and policies (or lack there of).
For Donald Trump, it's clear: put down the Twitter, and pick up a briefing book. His worst enemy has never been the media or Hillary Clinton; it's his own ego. The reality-TV-star-turned-presidential-candidate must know he can't make it through another debate on the sheer force of his own "believe me" and "big league" bluster.
The biggest danger for Hillary Clinton is her own success: with the pundit class declaring her victorious, and the potential of her seeing a small bump in national polls, Clinton might wrongly think she can just keep on keeping with her string of empty platitudes and poll-tested answers for just about everything.