Donald Trump needs something like a miracle at Sunday night's presidential debate. Because after a tape was published on Friday afternoon in which Trump described his behavior in terms reserved for the jury trial of a sexual predator, his whole candidacy is in jeopardy.
Dozens of GOP leaders are calling for him to resign his candidacy and be replaced by Mike Pence. And remember, even before this latest scandal — clearly the most damning in a litany of damning Trump behaviors — his presidential campaign was really dragging. His low-energy and huffy performances on the campaign trail last week suggest that he also knew it. Now, with this bomb exploding on his ambitions, who knows what will happen.
The state of the presidential race had been relatively stable since the conventions. By and large, Hillary Clinton was modestly leading. In key swing states like Pennsylvania, Trump has arguably only led Clinton for one day. He's had only one week of a lead in Colorado, and it disappeared quickly. But now, with the election less than a month away, Trump's inability to get or maintain any lead in this race is likely to demoralize would-be supporters. People want to go with the winner. And after this weekend's news and the defections that come from it, Clinton should be expected to jump to a sizeable — maybe insurmountable — lead.
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The truth is both of these candidates are wildly unpopular. And their unpopularity plays into the ups and downs of the race. When the media searchlight focuses on Trump (his deranged attacks on the Khan family, his unsurprisingly self-serving tax returns, his "grab her" tape), he fades. When the media focuses on Clinton (her worrying fainting spell, her unsurprisingly self-protective email scandal), she slips. Trump might not realize just how much the media attention is hurting him. He has believed since before the race began that the way to win was to get as much free media as possible, and just get people talking about him. If anything could prove to him that this strategy was foolish, this weekend will have done so.
Clinton's team seems to know that this is Trump's weakness. In the first presidential debate, and the only VP debate, Team Clinton set landmines that would go off over the next few days in the media. Trump and Pence seemed to step on all of them. Democrat Tim Kaine "lost" the VP debate, according to the relatively small audience that bothered to watch it. But by constantly quoting Trump's most outrageous lines about Mexicans, veterans, women, and blacks, Kaine baited Pence into easily debunked denials. All week on social media, a much larger audience saw the little highlight reels where Pence said, "He never said that" — followed by a clip of Trump saying exactly that. It makes the Trump-Pence ticket look either stupid or dishonest, and reminds voters that Trump is an oaf who can't control his mouth.
After the first presidential debate, Trump fell into the trap Clinton set for him by spending days foolishly talking about the weight of a former Miss Universe. Trump has more or less tried to keep a lid on things since. But even when he tries his hardest, he can't help himself. Last week he promised to "cut off relationships with China" if the trade war he intends to spark with them hurts his Las Vegas hotel business. And even if he were able to stay on his best behavior from now till election day, there are clearly just too many skeletons in his closet that could come out at any time. This horrible tape from 2005 is surely just one of many examples.
Tonight, Trump will be asked almost immediately to address this controversy. He will also almost certainly be the first candidate asked in a presidential debate whether he will drop out of the race.
If there is anything left of him after that, Trump still has to clean up messes left over from his last debate. On that night, when he was put under pressure, he usually caved in with exasperation. When Clinton accused him of not paying taxes, he winced defensively and said, "That makes me smart." Lo and behold, a few days later, a few pages of embarrassing-looking Trump tax returns were leaked to The New York Times. He's going to get asked about this tonight. He may even face questions about why he was encouraging people to search for a former beauty queen's sex tape at five in the morning.
Trump supporters have been "working the refs" as we head into tonight's debate. They complain, with some justification, that questions about Clinton's scandals are cut off quickly by the moderators while Trump's go on and on. We might have seen a course correction before these new revelations. But the truth is that it was Trump's unwillingness to prepare properly and force the issue himself that have been the biggest obstacles to his success. Now, he has an epic, campaign-defining scandal to address.
Before this tape exploded over his campaign this weekend, Trump was set to improve merely because the debate is in a town-hall format. The format meant he wouldn't be under as much direct verbal pressure from his opponent. He would be less likely to tire and get snippy as he did for the last 50 minutes of the first debate. The Trump "magic" wears off the minute he looks tired or annoyed. He has to be a joyful warrior. With this scandal exploding on him, that is probably impossible.
As for Clinton, she needs to continue going on the offensive. It would be a mistake to come into a debate like this over-confident or under-prepared. There is a small but non-zero chance she'll be debating Trump on the night before he is replaced on the ticket. So she should continue to make her own case. Clinton's job is to keep the media, and social media, talking about Donald Trump for one more month, whether he remains the candidate or not. She should remember that her greatest ally in this endeavor is standing just across from her.
