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WASHINGTON — White House candidate Donald Trump, facing eroding support from his party over lewd remarks about women, goes into a second presidential debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton at 9am today (Singapore time) under intense pressure to pull off a strong performance to demonstrate he remains a credible candidate.
Not only must he parry attacks from Mrs Clinton and explain why he is a better alternative, he must also show an apologetic side to stop more Republican supporters from giving up on him.
His unprecedented, outside-the-establishment presidential bid, and the embattled Republican Party with it, was thrown into disarray by the misogynistic comments, with growing calls from top Republicans for him to step aside.
With Mrs Clinton leading in the polls by nearly five percentage points nationally, Mr Trump already had an uphill battle to win the White House in the Nov 8 election before disclosure of a 2005 video in which he could be heard talking crudely about women.
Now his campaign has been rocked by its worst crisis, with the video echoing in voters’ ears, day in and day out.
“He understands this debate is very important for him,” said Mr Rudolph W Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, who is a senior adviser to Mr Trump and who is helping to prepare him for Sunday.
The fresh controversy adds an air of unpredictability over the debate at Washington University in St Louis, the second of three scheduled presidential debates as the long-running US election contest enters its final weeks.
The format poses its own difficulties for Mr Trump: It will be a town hall-style debate with undecided voters posing half the questions and the debate’s two moderators posing the others. He will want to build a personal connection with these everyday Americans and show his capacity for empathy, a quality that often has been drowned out in his large, raucous campaign rallies.
He has already been seriously hurt by a sloppy performance in his first debate with Clinton on Sept 26, a damaging Twitter war against a former Miss Universe and reports he may have paid no income taxes for 18 years.
Mrs Clinton is almost certain to call out Mr Trump about the videotape during the debate.
“This is horrific,” she said on Twitter. “We cannot allow this man to become President”.
For Mrs Clinton, the town-hall-style event provides her biggest venue yet to try to project a softer side and to improve her likeability. In contrast to Trump, who prefers big rallies, Mrs Clinton has interacted regularly with voters in town-hall-style settings.
“She likes answering questions from individual citizens and she listens and relates to people,” said Mr John Podesta, the campaign chairman for Mrs Clinton. “That’s a format that Donald Trump isn’t as used to.”
Republicans said Mr Trump needed to perform more like his running mate, Mr Mike Pence, who was deemed the winner in his vice-presidential debate against Democratic rival Tim Kaine last week.
Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said there is plenty Mr Trump could learn from Mr Pence, who stayed on the offensive at the vice-presidential debate, did not bother to respond to Mr Kaine’s accusations, and looked calm and unflappable.
“It was a clear lesson in how you avoid falling into your opponent’s traps,” Mr Bonjean said. “Don’t talk about what the other side wants you to talk about, focus on what you want to talk about.”
Mrs Clinton has been hunkered down for days getting ready for what could be, for her, a knockout blow against Mr Trump.
Before the video surfaced, Mrs Clinton’s campaign officials said they were expecting the Republican nominee to come to the debate more subdued than the first round.
But they were also prepared in case Mr Trump follows through with a threat to focus on Mrs Clinton’s sometimes troubled marriage to former President Bill Clinton.
Mrs Clinton, who has already capitalised on Mr Trump’s treatment of women, herself foreshadowed how she might respond to an attack from Mr Trump on her marriage during a speech to a fundraiser in Washington last week.
“I feel it’s my responsibility not to defend myself against his attacks because, really, been there, done that,” she said. “I think it’s my responsibility to defend everybody else against his attacks,” she said.
Mrs Clinton has her own issues to face. Wikileaks on Friday published an email from Clinton advisers appearing to contain excerpts of paid speeches to corporations, in which Mrs Clinton voices support for open trade and borders and says how sometimes it is important to have a public and private position. AGENCIES