Now that the dust has settled on the first Presidential debate, we have a much clearer picture of Monday’s winners and losers. Every fact has been checked, every sigh analyzed, and every opinion has been formed. But, while most people watched the debate on big screen TVs or streamed on their phones, the UNU Community watched the debate together, harnessing the power of Swarm Intelligence to reveal insights that no poll can match.

Because UNU empowers its users to ask and answer questions in real-time, the conversation that took place in UNU over the course of the debate sheds light on public sentiment in a unique and immediate way. Let’s take a look back at what how the UNU Community predicted the debate would unfold, and compare it to what actually happened.

The first question is, of course, who will win the debate?  As you can see in the replay below, the Swarm expected that Hillary Clinton would prevail. While we try to stay out of politics here on the UNU blog, it’s safe to say that Vegas would be hard-pressed to judge that bet a loser.

More interesting than picking a “winner” is deciding whether the debate really matters at all. As the election cycle in the United States draws ever longer ( and becomes less and less distinct from a reality TV show ) it’s worth wondering how important these staged debates are to the average voter. So, we asked UNU:

In the run up to the debate, much was made of how the candidates would handle themselves on stage. Trump is well-known as an aggressive and skilled negotiator who seems to thrive on conflict, while Hillary Clinton has been a force in American politics for decades. What would happen when these two strong personalities clashed on the nation’s stage? First, one user asked UNU a simple A / B question…

As we’ve seen before in UNU, the meaning of “presidential” is an ever-changing one, but the replay here reveals was the first glimpse into UNU’s expectations for the evening — that Trump would be the proverbial loose-cannon on stage, while Clinton would keep her cool. This belief is made clear in the Swarm’s answer to whether or not Trump would use a term for Clinton onstage that he’s made popular at his rallies and appearances in contrast its answer to the same question of regarding on of Hillary’s favorite criticisms of Trump.

Of course, the Swarm was slightly off-base in its expectations, as both candidates refrained from the sort of petty jabs that have marked the last few months of the campaign. In its place ( thankfully ) was a mostly substantive debate that steered clear of the insults. The worst one can say of Trump’s performance in this regard is that he seemed far more likely to interrupt Clinton than she did him. In fact, when the conversation turned to a sensitive subject for Trump, namely his refusal to disclose his tax returns as every major party candidate in the past 40 years has done, the Swarm bailed the real estate mogul out:

With that said, the Swarm still hasn’t seemed to truly warm to either candidate. Even accounting for the widespread belief that Clinton came out on top in this first debate, a debate the Swarm itself “believed” would be important to the election, neither candidate seems to be inspiring anything approaching likability. On the contrary, it seems that more members of the UNU Community are likely to register a vote in protest than for any other reason.

At this point in the election, when many people have already made up their minds, pundits often put undecided voters to the “who would you rather have a beer with?” test. This question is designed to combine the feelings of likability and trustworthiness that would reveal which candidate an undecided voter would ultimately feel more comfortable having in office. But, one member of the UNU Community decided to put his or her own spin on this now infamous question. Perhaps they were inspired by the fact that Trump and Clinton are two of the oldest candidates in US history, and both have multiple grandchildren?

Though I’m a big believer in the power of Swarm Intelligence, not even I would recommend that you turn your vote over to the Swarm. ( At least not until we have the full results from the very promising UNU Baseball experiment! ) But, I would highly recommend that you join UNU for the subsequent debates. There’s no more fun way to experience this election cycle than inside UNU.