The bombshell Donald Trump video that surfaced Friday has so dramatically altered expectations for Sunday’s town hall debate that one Democrat close to Bill and Hillary Clinton had a new view of what may unfold in St. Louis: “Expect Armageddon.” 
 
 Hillary Clinton will arrive at the Washington University debate stage Sunday prepped for battle against an opponent many of her allies believe has already lost the election. 
 
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 Trump, in contrast, will walk onto the debate stage with nothing to lose. 
 
 Two days after a tape surfaced of the reality television star bragging in obscene terms about groping and kissing women without consent, and a day after unprecedented defections of support and calls for his withdrawal from leaders of his own party, the second debate now falls at the most precipitous moment in the election. 
 
 That puts Clinton in a more precarious position on the debate stage. “I think that Trump will figure he’s got nothing to lose, so he might as well go all out,” said the Democrat close to the Clintons. 
 
 Longtime Democratic strategist Robert Shrum, who guided the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry, said that “to the extent that he has any chance left at all — and I don’t think he does — this debate is do or die for him. Her goal is to do no harm and relate to voters.” 
 
 A Clinton campaign official on Saturday said the Democratic nominee plans to address the bombshell Trump tape head-on for the first time from the debate stage — and that the campaign went dark on Saturday in order to capitalize on one of the biggest audiences available with 30 days left of the race, tuned in to hear her response. 
 
 But in debate prep sessions in the week leading up to the debate, Clinton aides were urging the Democratic nominee to remain focused on the real people posing questions in the town hall forum, rather than engage in an ugly back and forth with Trump. The goal, they said, should be to show off the caring, connecting, maternal side of Clinton that voters are less familiar with than the steely war horse who endured an 11-hour Benghazi hearing last fall. 
 
 But the weekend’s events have upended any expectation of a normal debate. In a video statement released late Friday night, Trump said that “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary Clinton has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days.” 
 
 On Saturday evening, Trump previewed his nothing-to-lose strategy — he retweeted Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who accused Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978. Bill Clinton has denied the accusation, which Broaddrick made in 1999, in the wake of his affair with Monica Lewinsky. 
 
 Clinton was also preparing to respond to questions about her paid Wall Street speeches, which emerged on WikiLeaks after campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails were hacked. In one line, she stressed the importance of having a “public and private position” on contentious political issues. A source familiar with her debate prep said she plans to dismiss any scrutiny of the leaked excerpts from her speech as no different from what she has said in public. 
 
 But many Democratic allies predicted that bringing up Bill Clinton’s sex scandals only paints his wife in a sympathetic position, as someone who has struggled and suffered to keep her family together as a unit. Even if Trump argues that she disparaged the women who allegedly engaged in affairs with her husband, they said, many voters will see her through the lens of a hurt wife lashing out. 
 
 But a down-in-the-gutter conversation about sex and speeches is still not how the Clinton campaign would like to spend 90 minutes in prime time, with millions of viewers tuned in. 
 
 “The challenge, and the opportunity, will be to connect with people in a visceral and not simply a programmatic way,” said David Axelrod, a former senior strategist for President Barack Obama. “The danger is that she could overplay the attacks in a forum in which her interaction with the questioners should be a primary focus.” 
 
 “Voters identify with the citizens asking the questions,” added longtime Clinton ally Paul Begala, who is working as an adviser to the Clinton-backing super PAC Priorities USA. “I would bet my life that she talks about her 19-point plan on child care. What I’m wishing and praying for is, she makes a reference to the fact that she was a working mom. You’ve got to be more conversational.” 
 
 Before Trump’s weekend massacre, Clinton’s aides were hoping the town hall set up would be an opportunity for the oft-obscured “real Hillary” to reveal herself. 
 
 They pointed to a moment last February in Las Vegas, when Clinton comforted an emotional 10-year-old Latina girl who said she feared her parents were going to be deported, as one of her finest moments on the trail. “I’m going to do everything I can so you don’t have to be scared,” Clinton told Karla Ortiz, wrapping her arm around the girl’s waist. “Let me do the worrying, I’ll do all the worrying, is that a deal?” 
 
 Clinton aides often refer to the scene (which occurred in a private meeting and was released by the campaign as a carefully produced television commercial) as a prime example of the side of the Democratic nominee that voters don’t know exists. 
 
 More important than attacking Trump, Democratic allies said, was creating an “Ortiz moment,” which could give undecided voters a sense of something positive to vote for, not just someone to vote against. 
 
 Even before the release of Trump’s profane tape, in which he talks of grabbing women by the “pussy” and trying to seduce a married woman by “moving on her like a bitch,” Clinton was entering the second debate surging in the polls. The FiveThirtyEight election forecast had boosted her chances of winning back up to 79.6 percent before the damaging Trump tape release, and a new Quinnipiac University poll released Friday morning showed Clinton leading Trump nationally by 5 points. 
 
 That lead has given some of her longtime aides pause: if the past is prelude, this is exactly when Clinton chokes. 
 
 “She has, historically been a really horrible front-runner,” conceded one veteran of her 2008 campaign. “She’s extremely cautious and risk-averse, and it causes her, ironically, to make mistakes.” Another longtime aide added: "Finishing the deal has been hard for her in many contexts. Nobody in her universe is fully confident until it’s actually over.” 
 
 But the Trump tape changes the stakes. Clinton has never in her long career been this close to the finish line. And she has never had an opponent falling apart because of his aggressive and disparaging remarks about women: She now also has the opportunity to stand as a powerful avatar for disgusted and depressed women across the country. 
 
 It’s a role she has, in the past, hesitated to play. In her presidential campaign eight years ago, Clinton downplayed her gender, often saying that she “was not running as a woman” but “because I believe I am the best-qualified and experienced person.” 
 
 But on Saturday, her campaign released a powerful 90-second video online, splicing Trump’s profane comments from the leaked video with other misogynistic statements he has made over the course of his campaign. “Women have the power to stop Trump,” Clinton’s campaign tweeted from the candidate’s official account, with a link to the Web video. 
 
 The official campaign Twitter account also tweeted a quote from Sen. Cory Booker: “Sometimes the man in the arena, it ain’t a man. It is a woman.” 
 
 The events of the weekend were a boon to Clinton’s campaign, but also required re-prepping. Clinton’s aides had been reviewing tape of Trump in town hall settings and video of his deposition from June, in order to prepare for a more toned-down version of the blustering real estate mogul. 
 
 But on Saturday, longtime Clinton allies said they expected Trump was more likely to use the debate as a last-ditch effort to save his candidacy — and if that didn't work, possibly get out of the race and turn it over to Mike Pence to defeat Clinton. 
 
 The campaign’s attorney, Marc Elias, and campaign manager Robby Mook were huddling Saturday to discuss that possibility, but Elias said that it was too late to replace Trump on state ballots and he would be the candidate, no matter what, on Election Day. 
 
 Trump, meanwhile, was putting on a strong face, even in the wake of unprecedented defections from top GOP senators and party leaders. On Saturday afternoon, he strode out of Trump Tower to wave to a crowd of supporters gathered on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. 
 
 “The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly — I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN #MAGA” he tweeted Saturday afternoon. 
 
 And those Republicans who were still standing with him previewed a come-from-behind performance. “Donald Trump is a clutch player who does well when he’s under pressure,” said Roger Stone, a former adviser to his campaign. “Any mistakes he makes are more likely when his guard is down and it’s casual.” ||||| The final stretch of the longest presidential campaign in history opens this week. Think it’s been ugly? You’ve seen nothing yet. 
 
 Both Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s teams see September as the month that will make — or break — their candidate’s case for the White House. A confident Clinton fighting to keep expectations in check will ratchet up her get-out-the-vote operation while courting more Republicans to her camp. A defiant Trump will double down on the America-first message that he thinks got him this far in the first place. The Democrat's allies will continue to blanket the battleground airwaves with stinging attacks on Trump’s character. And three weeks into the month, early voting periods will open, state by state. 
 
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 But nothing is more crucial for either contender than Sept. 26, when Clinton and Trump will meet at Hofstra University for the first presidential debate. Both campaigns have come to the conclusion that for the Republican nominee to compete in the homestretch, he needs a shock to the system and the Hempstead, New York, forum offers his best opportunity. 
 
 “The wildness and unpredictability of the last 16 months?” said Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. “It's only going to increase. It’s not going away. Hold onto your hat." 
 
 Clinton’s camp is already wary. After watching Trump try to refocus after a staff shakeup in the second half of August, stick to his teleprompter-loaded remarks, travel to Mexico to stand next to an elected head of state and then deliver a hard-line immigration speech lauded by conservative Republicans, operatives at the highest rungs of the Democrat’s operation admit to mounting worry about his ability to pare deficits in the battleground states in which she is leading by roughly 5 points or less. 
 
 At the center of senior Clinton aides’ pre-debate concern is the belief that Trump’s past few days demonstrate how low the bar is for his performance to be called a success. If simply standing next to the Mexican president is perceived as a win for Trump’s image, they complain, appearing across from Clinton will likely further elevate his standing. Indeed, Clinton’s inner circle is eager to tamp down any sign of confidence, no matter her current lead or the Electoral College map. 
 
 Trump’s inner circle agrees the stakes are high — internally acknowledging that Clinton is on track to win the White House unless the response to his debate performance is titanic. But the Republican and his allies are entering September with renewed confidence, buoyed by a narrowing in national polling, even if he remains behind in swing-state surveys. The RealClearPolitics national polling average, for example, has him down just 4.1 percentage points, a nearly halved margin from Clinton’s post-convention peak of 7.9 points in early August. The “Let Trump be Trump” faction of his rollicking campaign has claimed dominance in his debate-focused strategy sessions, while his operatives in Manhattan and suburban Washington puzzle through how to run a base-turnout election that gives him a realistic shot at 270 electoral votes. 
 
 But like just about everything in 2016, Trump’s and Clinton’s approaches to debate prep could not be more different. 
 
 The Democrat started her prep weeks ago, diving into policy briefing materials compiled by her internal teams while meeting with the experienced Democrats organizing her debate operations, often at her home outside New York City and occasionally on the campaign trail during her quiet August. Her team is led by debate veterans Ron Klain and Karen Dunn. Campaign chairman John Podesta, chief strategist Joel Benenson, and senior consultants Mandy Grunwald and Jim Margolis are also involved. So is lawyer Robert Barnett — another longtime coach — though his primary focus is on running mate Tim Kaine’s debate. 
 
 Clinton has stuck to consulting with this inner circle, which thinks general-election debates are policy discussions and that Trump can’t emerge unscathed in the eyes of undecided voters from a substantive test on the issues. 
 
 “I don’t think there’s any question — especially when it seems like the electorate is firming up and it seems like there are less and less undecideds at this point” — that the debate is an inflection point, said Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, a prominent Clinton supporter. “It does feel like Trump’s hit some sort of a ceiling. If there’s any way to break that loose, he’s got to somehow magically understand foreign policy and complexities of domestic policy, and have to tell the truth, too." 
 
 Some political professionals surrounding Trump, meanwhile, have been urging him to start preparing for the first debate for six months, said former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, an early Trump supporter, counting himself among the allies suggesting that approach. 
 
 Trump didn’t heed that advice, only recently convening his own debate-focused team of campaign CEO Steve Bannon, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, son-in-law Jared Kushner and other family members to plot strategy. He’s also consulting with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn and Brown, said one person involved in the process, who also noted that radio host Laura Ingraham’s role is a frequent topic of discussion. 
 
 Those surrounding Trump don’t expect him to dig through policy binders, and they’re skeptical he'll participate in a mock debate — expecting him to focus instead on the top-line optics when debating a longtime pol. 
 
 "She says she’s preparing," Brown said. "She’s well versed in this area; she’s been running for offices for decades now. She’ll have a national built-in advantage because she’s been a politician her whole life, and you’re running against someone who hasn’t. He’s not as filtered as she is; she hasn’t driven in 20 years. She seems kind of uneasy hanging out with people; she can’t yuk it up like one of the guys or gals and talk about the Red Sox or the Jets. Trump can — he brings the everyman appeal." 
 
 Clinton’s prep team has, accordingly, puzzled through making her look trustworthy, suggesting ways for Clinton to pin down Trump on policy and expose his lack of knowledge. 
 
 “In a two-person debate; it’s not going to work to say, ‘I’ll take care of this; I know more than the generals, believe me,’” said former Pennsylvania governor and longtime Clinton friend Ed Rendell. “You actually have to be substantive." 
 
 But they remain concerned about Trump’s unpredictability, as Clinton privately acknowledges to donors. Before selecting its stand-in, her campaign was flooded with tentative offers from supporters eager to play the Trump role in mock sessions — even getting one from former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. (She was kidding, she said: “I’m probably too short.”) 
 
 Still more complications are piling up: Clinton friends say she is leaving open the possibility that Trump agrees to only one debate, increasing the urgency of appealing to as many constituencies as possible in 90 minutes. They also expect him to threaten to pull out of the debate in the weeks leading up to it as a way to heighten the drama, and to agitate for the inclusion of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson — a fate the Clinton camp is desperate to avoid. 
 
 Her team is also grappling with the difficulty of preparing the candidate to debate an opponent so inconsistent that he could either throw personal insults, mocking her in the way he did his GOP primary opponents, or offer a more presidential presence, as he attempted last week in Mexico. 
 
 “It’s a difficult thing to debate a chameleon,” Hickenlooper said. 
 
 Trump forces are eager to cultivate the unpredictability mystique. They’re also eager to lower expectations. 
 
 “The debates may turn out not to be the spectacle people think they are: Both candidates are seasoned debaters at this point,” said former Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston, a Trump adviser. “I just don’t see Hillary Clinton slipping in a debate." 
 
 Nonetheless, new confidence has burst into Trump’s everyday interactions since he installed Bannon and Conway, say associates. Bannon has convinced Trump to stick to scripted speeches written by him and policy aide Stephen Miller, which people in Bannon’s orbits see as a critical development. 
 
 That’s not to say there aren’t still competing centers of influence within the Trump infrastructure, as Kushner plays an outsize role and Giuliani finds himself ever more firmly ensconced. But those guiding Trump have concluded that turning the remaining months into a base election — the kind of appeal with which the candidate is most comfortable — is his only realistic path to victory. 
 
 Clinton’s team and her supportive super PAC, Priorities USA Action, have booked tens of millions of dollars worth of television airtime for Trump-savaging ads over the coming stretch, but Trump’s campaign has promised to go on air only in the coming week, pulling together a small buy that isn’t supplemented by much super-PAC firepower as major Republican donors remain on the sidelines. 
 
 Clinton’s cash-rich camp, meanwhile, has been eager to expand the map, adding an initial Arizona purchase to its portfolio last week, while leaders of the super PAC have been meeting and holding conference calls to consider expanding into Arizona and Georgia — two states where the group has been actively polling for weeks. 
 
 This week Clinton’s campaign is shifting into a get-out-the-vote mode while she also maintains her sideline pursuit of poachable Republicans. Her team will continue touting prominent GOP endorsements: Former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman even introduced Clinton at multiple closed-door August fundraisers in California. There, the candidate explained her approach to Republicans interested in Trump, according to one Bay Area attendee. Clinton divides Trump voters into two baskets, she said: the everyday Republicans — her targets — and what she called “the deplorables” — the "alt-right" crowd she excoriates and has no hope of wooing. 
 
 Clinton will substantially ramp up her campaign travel schedule in September, focusing on national security issues this week. Her team will also step up its surrogate activity, planning at least one major appearance from Clinton, Kaine, former President Bill Clinton — who will reappear on the trail after some time focused on fundraising — President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders every day. 
 
 That starts Monday, with Sanders in New Hampshire, Biden in Pennsylvania, and Bill Clinton in Michigan and Ohio. 
 
 But all that is simply a way to count down to the moment that might seal their presidential fate. 
 
 “Debates,” said Ryan, "are really the only opportunity to try and shift a campaign." 
 
 Eli Stokols contributed to this report.
– Donald Trump was pretty pleased with his performance against Hillary Clinton at Monday's debate, even though scientific polls—not the easily manipulated online polls that Trump is citing—show most Americans pick Clinton as the clear victor. Even some of his own campaign advisers don't feel he was on point enough during the head-to-head, though they're framing it as "missed opportunities" rather than total failure. And so the strategy for Oct. 9's debate is reportedly getting an overhaul, with more role-playing practice, facts study, and even rehearsing how to move around the stage for the town-hall-style event, per the New York Times. What these advisers, who spoke anonymously to the paper, are worried about, however, is whether Trump will agree to this prep. Complicating things: Some say he actually was drilled on how to combat Clinton on certain issues and that he just chose not to. Others point the finger at Trump's extremely busy schedule in the days before the debate and too many people (up to a dozen, some with not much political acumen) giving him conflicting suggestions. Sources say his debate training was "unconventional," with Trump unable to concentrate during more traditional sessions and preferring to simply dish with advisers rather than have mock debates. Trump himself told Fox News he found it hard to segue into some of those challenges against Clinton on the debate stage, such as the subject of Benghazi. Trump's pulling back—he stopped attacking Clinton and even grew "subdued" as the debate proceeded—has got to change the next time around, frustrated aides say. Instead, he has to set Clinton's vulnerabilities in his sights and stick to his plan for the whole night. "It clearly looked like he ran out of gas after 30 minutes [in the New York debate], and that came through loud and clear," a senior political strategist tells the Times.