The most personal test

One cough too many from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton or a particularly crude faux pas by Republican candidate Donald Trump could, happily or unhappily, depending on which camp in the divided America of today one belongs to, clinch the first debate between the two, slated to be held on Monday evening at Hofstra University in New York.

The 2016 presidential campaign has been so insane and unexpected that any little thing could decide it. The craziest election campaign in history is taking place between two candidates who have already broken records in negative popularity ratings. What should have been a leisurely stroll to the White House for former Secretary of State Clinton has become an exhausting obstacle course. She may lose on Nov. 8 to someone the media dubbed a "clown" who was only in it for publicity. That clown has managed to hang in there, even though predictions said he had zero chance of winning the Republican nomination. Now, with six weeks to go, plenty of polls are putting daily pressure on the Democratic camp. Moreover, Trump comes out ahead on questions of who is more capable of managing the economy and who is more trustworthy.

As the race enters the home stretch, Clinton is seeing how the big lead she had in August following the two parties' conventions has simply evaporated. According to a Quinnipiac University poll published on Aug. 17, Clinton had a double-digit lead over Trump in three swing states, Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia. Today, Clinton is hanging on to a narrow lead in Virginia, but Trump managed to close the 10-point gap between them in Colorado, and is leading in Iowa.

Other polls indicate that Trump is gaining in states such as Michigan and New Hampshire. Nate Silver has long since become the Bible of pollsters, because he uses a number of statistical models to predict outcomes, and not only in polls. He recently noted that on one hand, Clinton was leading in enough states to win the presidency, but that given that things were going Trump's way, she had no room to maneuver. If Clinton loses in a state where she is currently in the lead and does not replace that with a state where Trump is leading, she will lose the election.

Trump's rise can be explained by a number of things. First, Clinton's questionable health. Her collapse on Sept. 11 during a memorial ceremony for the victims of the World Trade Center attacks is imprinted on voters' memory. It has become so absurd that if she avoids coughing in tomorrow's debate, her staff can call that a victory.

But Clinton's troubles do not end there. After she recovered and returned to the campaign, there was the bombing in New York and the stabbings in Minnesota, and the fear of terrorism has once again become a main campaign issue for many people -- another bump for Trump. Although Clinton has a slight advantage over her rival in the polls when it comes to the question of who is best able to solve the problem of terrorism, she was part of an administration that failed both in recognizing the threat posed by the Islamic State group and in combating that threat.

As if all that was not enough, there are the riots in Charlotte and the fatal shooting of Keith Scott by police to remind us that after eight years of President Barack Obama in office, racial tensions in the U.S. have reached new heights. While young people in Charlotte are demonstrating in the streets despite the curfew, the killing of five civilians by a gunman in a Washington shopping mall on Friday is contributing to the atmosphere of insecurity and violence that Trump is talking about. Whether we like it or not, Trump symbolizes change and has branded himself as the "law and order candidate." All these recent events work to his advantage.

Something else could also help Trump a lot: Disappointed Clinton supporters are moving more and more toward third-party candidates -- Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarians -- while Trump is cementing his status among Republicans and erasing Clinton's lead among Independent voters. One of the things we should conclude from that trend is that the Republicans are coming home, and the support from Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Texas), who previously refused to back Trump during the Cleveland convention, might be proof of that.

Now Monday's debate could move us along in these cliffhanger elections. For 90 minutes, Clinton will have to face off against Trump with the cameras on both of them, even when they are not speaking. (One channel has already made it clear that it will use a split screen to follow both candidates' reactions in real-time.)

"Let Trump be Trump," his staff advised ahead of the primaries, and he beat 16 other candidates. Now, they are advising Trump to "let Clinton be Clinton," to highlight her tendency to bury the viewers in details, as opposed to Trump's tendency to speak concisely and to the point.

Today, both candidates are scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York. He could probably give them a pointer or two.

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