Live updates: Trump promotes his 'winning temperament'

UPDATE 10:30 P.M.: After a testy exchange with moderator Lester Holt over whether or not he supported the Iraq War, Donald Trump proclaimed that his “winning temperament” is his strongest asset.

For perhaps the first time all night, Republicans and Democrats on the IndyStar debate panel found something to agree on.

UPDATE 10:10 P.M.: Shifting to race relations and crime, Donald Trump expressed his support for a national "stop-and-frisk" program, while Hillary Clinton went after Trump for perpetuating what she called the "racist lie" that President Barack Obama was born outside the U.S.

The debate over race relations and public safety is sure to be a flash point in battleground states such as North Carolina, where recent high profile police shootings led to protests and sometimes violent clashes with law enforcement.

Trump made an overt plea to African Americans, saying they had been let down for decades by Democratic politicians.

“The community within the inner cities has been so badly treated, they’ve been abused and used in order to get votes by Democrat politicians,” Trump said.

The moderator, Lester Holt pointed out that the New York City stop-and-frisk policy that Trump supports was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, and repeatedly asked Trump to address why he perpetuated the "birther" controversy for years after Obama produced his birth certificate.

"I was the one who got him to produce the birth certificate, and I think I did a good job," Trump said.

Clinton replied that Trump launched his political career on “this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen.”

UPDATE 9:50 P.M.: The debate has taken a testy turn as the conversation shifted to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, and Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns.

In one of the funnier exchanges so far, Clinton riffed that according to Trump, she was to blame for all of the world’s problems.

“I have a feeling by the end of this evening, I’m going to be blamed for everything that’s ever happened,” Clinton said.

“Why not?” Trump replied.

UPDATE 9:30 P.M.: Trade — in particular the President Bill Clinton-era NAFTA trade deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership — became an early flash point in the debate.

Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for her prior support of free trade agreements, though she has backed off of her initial support for the TPP.

Trump at one point called NAFTA “the worst thing that ever happened to the manufacturing industry" — an assertion Clinton balked at.

"We are 5 percent of the world’s population, we have to trade with the other 95 percent,” Clinton said.

The line of attacks drew some snarky responses from IndyStar's debate panel:

It's worth noting, while trade has become a major political issue in this year's campaign, with candidates in both parties criticizing trade agreements, a majority of Americans actually say globalization and free trade has been a positive.

UPDATE 9:15 P.M.: Faced with an opening question on the economy, Republican nominee Donald Trump wasted no time in turning the conversation to Carrier, the air conditioning giant that announced earlier this year that it would outsource jobs from Indianapolis to Mexico.

Trump promised to keep jobs in America by cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, adding "That’s going to be a job creator like we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan."

Clinton's take? “He really believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we’ll be … I don’t buy that," she said.

Trump's mention of Carrier brought a swift rebuke from Democrats on the IndyStar panel, who said it happened under his running mate's watch.

UPDATE 9 P.M.: With the debate moments away, IndyStar's debate panel offered its predictions for what we're about to see.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the predictions are decidedly split along partisan lines.

One Republican predicts Donald Trump will look presidential. And the spokesman for the state Democratic Party is predicting "he's probably gonna explode."

"What he’s going to do is talk the same divisive rhetoric he’s done the whole campaign, and what Hillary Clinton is going to do is actually talk about her plans that she has released since day one of the campaign," said Drew Anderson, the communications director for the Indiana Democrats.

Rob Kendall, a conservative radio host, argued that Trump "has done a great job of setting no expectations — so long as he does a halfway decent job, I think people will say, 'hey, that's a pretty normal guy.' I think that's been his plan all along."

Meanwhile, Cecil Bohanon, a Libertarian commentator from Ball State University, is hoping both candidates bomb.

"What I kind of hope happens is that if both of them come out as their real self, they’ll look ridiculous, (Libertarian nominee Gary) Johnson will rise in the polls to 15 percent and he’ll be in the next debate," Bohanon said.

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EARLIER: Well, here we go.

After months of sniping at one another from afar in speeches, tweets and attack ads, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will share a stage tonight for the first time in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The stakes are high: Trump and Clinton are deadlocked in the latest national polling, and a pair of swing state polls released Monday suggest that same dynamic is playing out in the battleground states that may ultimately decide the Electoral College.

Indiana, of course, is not likely to be a battleground, though there's still plenty of intrigue for Hoosiers: Next week, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will have his turn at the podium in the vice presidential debate.

And for tonight, we've assembled a panel of Indiana political experts to provide live analysis and reactions.

Our debate watch party starts at 8:45 p.m. with a live chat on the IndyStar Facebook page, moderated by Statehouse reporter Chelsea Schneider. When the debate begins at 9 p.m., our panelists will hop over to Twitter for live reactions and analysis. Use #StarDebate to join the discussion.

And if Twitter's not your thing? Follow along here. We'll have live updates throughout the evening.

5 things Hillary Clinton needs to do on debate night

5 things Donald Trump needs to do on debate night

Call IndyStar reporter Brian Eason at (317) 444-6129. Follow him on Twitter: @brianeason.