Donald Trump's campaign is banking on the polls being inaccurate and missing a large enough segment of his voters that could prove decisive on election day. According to a Politico article this morning, a number of Republican consultants and operatives think there may be some truth to the campaign's hope:

GOP insiders: Polls don't capture secret Trump vote

Those battleground state polls that paint such a grim picture of Donald Trump's prospects against Hillary Clinton? Most Republican insiders don't believe they're accurately capturing Trump’s true level of support.

That’s according to the POLITICO Caucus — a panel of activists, strategists and operatives in 11 key battleground states. More than seven-in-10 GOP insiders, 71 percent, say the polls understate Trump’s support because voters don’t want to admit to pollsters that they are backing the controversial Republican nominee.

With Trump falling behind in the majority of swing states, an overwhelming polling error may represent his best hope to win next month — and even that may not be enough. At the same time GOP insiders say there are “shy Trump” voters out there who aren't showing up in the polls, a 59-percent majority still say Clinton would win their state if the election were held today.

Polls are subject to a variety of factors, including "shy" voters who don't feel comfortable telling a stranger on a phone whom they really intend to vote for. But claiming rigged and faulty polling is usually the refuge of failing campaigns, and with less than two weeks this report shouldn't be much comfort to Trump supporters.

According to Politico, the early voting trends are not likely to be providing much comfort to the campaign of Donald Trump:

GOP's early vote worries mount

In Nevada, where early in-person voting began on Saturday, Democratic voters cast 23,000 more ballots than Republicans as of Tuesday afternoon, good for a 15-percentage-point edge in the nearly 150,000 ballots cast. (Mail in and absentee ballots narrow the gap slightly).

Polling and early voting returns suggest Democrats are maintaining an edge in North Carolina, and they are also slicing into a thinner-than-expected early vote lead for Republicans in Florida, who now lead by about half a percentage point; in 2012, the GOP held a much more significant edge two weeks from Election Day. Women in Florida are casting early ballots in far greater numbers than four years ago, and Hispanic turnout is surging as well, according to data released by the Clinton campaign. Polls suggest that both constituencies are strongly Democratic this year.

In Colorado — where Democrats hold a voter registration edge for the first time — early returns give the party a 23,000-vote lead in returned and in-person ballots. In Arizona, which last went Democratic in 1996, Democrats held a thin early-vote lead on Monday.

The data isn't all bad, as can be seen reading the full article. But it's hard to see this as good news for Trump.

Utah has long been a reliable Republican state in the electoral college, but that may change in 2016, according to Bloomberg Politics:

Mormon Support Could Push McMullin Over the Top in Utah

In an election year when voters in record numbers say they’re fed up with major-party nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Utah alone appears poised to walk the walk and deliver a win for independent Evan McMullin.

In no small part, support for McMullin in Utah and and a handful of other western states stems from his Mormon faith, but many members of the Church of Latter Day Saints also say he’s the only candidate on the ballot who shares their political vision.

“Usually we have a choice between the lesser of two evils but this year both major candidates are evil. He’s the one I can support,” Wendy Greenman, a lifelong Republican, said during an interview at her home in Kaysville, a tidy suburban community 25 minutes north of Salt Lake City. “I loved that Trump was not polished—which is what I think most people like. I’m still gob-smacked he was the Republican candidate.”

The next president almost certainly will not be Evan McMullin, but the fact that he is even in contention to win a single state's electoral votes is just one more sign of how unusual 2016 has been.

Winning the presidency ultimately boils down to patching together enough states to win 270 or more electoral votes. According to an analysis by Politico, that task is almost entirely out of reach for Donald Trump at this point:

Trump's incredible shrinking map

In June, POLITICO identified 11 key battleground states — totaling 146 electoral votes — that would effectively decide the presidential election in November. A new examination of polling data and strategic campaign ad buys indicates that six of those 11 are now comfortably in Hillary Clinton’s column.

Clinton leads Donald Trump by 5 points or greater in POLITICO’s Battleground States polling average in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. If the Democratic nominee won those six states, plus all the other reliably Democratic states President Barack Obama captured in both 2008 and 2012, she would eclipse the 270-electoral-vote threshold and win the presidency.

Even if Trump ran the table in the remaining battleground states — Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio — he would fall short of the White House if he cannot flip another state where Clinton currently leads in the polls.

It's probably too early to write Trump off once and for all, especially in a year in which the Cubs are still alive in their World Series chase. But without some significant external event that dramatically re-casts the election, it's almost impossible to see Trump closing the gap and winning on election day.

With a noticeable lead in nearly all the polls, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has only to avoid any major gaffes in tonight's debate or for the remaining 20 days if she wants to be elected, at least according to an assessment in this morning's Politico:

Can Clinton keep her head down?

Hillary Clinton’s favorite way to abuse a lead is to take her foot off the gas pedal and coast. This time, as the campaign confidently expands into red states with just three weeks to go, it’s a tendency her team actually wants her to indulge in the final, bitter face-off against Donald Trump.

The goal for Clinton, according to a longtime aide, is to make Trump “shadowbox” his way through the 90-minute session Wednesday night -- by keeping her head down and avoiding direct confrontation as he hurls personal and Wiki-related attacks in her direction...

Indeed, if her goal is to keep a low profile on the stage Wednesday night, it’s to raise it everywhere that matters in the following days. Over the next week, she plans to travel to major battlegrounds where Trump was leading just a few short weeks ago; she will be in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida in the next week.

Avoiding confrontation may be the smart move, or it may backfire - it's not difficult to imagine Donald Trump leveling incendiary and unsettling charges, and by refusing to respond Clinton may give the impression she can't, or at least doesn't have an acceptable response. But charges by Trump against Clinton doesn't seem to have had all that much effect so far, and it seems unlikely tonight will be any different.

With three weeks and one day until election day (though with early voting, that term seems less and less relevant), poll analysis posted at The Washington Post suggests that Donald Trump may not be able to add to his already lackluster numbers:

Trump has reached his ceiling, with little or no room to grow

On the surface, the Republican nominee is surprisingly close to Hillary Clinton in the Washington Post/ABC News survey. He trails by just 4 points, 50 percent to 46 percent, among likely voters nationwide. That happens to be the same size as the margin of error. It is also only a two-point shift in Clinton’s direction since our poll on the eve of the first debate, before his attacks on a former Miss Universe, the release of the 2005 video and the emergence of more than a dozen women who have accused him of unwanted sexual advances...

With the help of our in-house pollster Scott Clement, I studied the 14 percent of registered voters who support neither Clinton nor Trump in the four-way poll test. This includes the 6 percent for Gary Johnson and the 3 percent for Jill Stein but also the 3 percent who volunteered to our callers that they are supporting none of the four and the 2 percent who said they have not decided yet.

Among this sub-group, 71 percent are “strongly unfavorable” to Trump versus 46 percent who say the same of Clinton. He comes fairly close to her on honesty (83 percent say Trump is not honest and trustworthy, compared to 78 percent who say the same for Clinton) and on who is best for the economy (35 percent say Trump and 32 percent say Clinton). But there is a big chasm on two questions that tend to be better predictors of vote choice: 77 percent say Trump is not qualified to be president, compared to 44 percent who say Clinton is not. And 86 percent say Trump lacks the temperament to be president, compared to 42 percent who say the same of Clinton.

It's probably too early to call the race, but it is clear that Trump will need some dramatic events or revelations to close the gap in the face of overwhelming negative perceptions of him by the handful of voters who may be up for grabs.

It's a sign of just how unconventional a year 2016 has been that Utah, traditionally a bastion of Republican support, is potentially competitive this November, as The Washington Post reports:

Clinton now sees heavily Republican Utah as winnable, her running mate says

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is making “a strong play” to win Utah, a state that Democrats have not carried since 1964, her running mate, Tim Kaine, said Thursday...

Trump and Clinton were knotted at 26 percent in Utah, with independent candidate Evan McMullin at 22 percent and Libertarian Gary Johnson at 14 percent in a poll released this week by Y2 Analytics...

Trump has failed to nail down Utah in large part because the state’s heavily Mormon population has not embraced him. In Utah’s Republican caucuses, Trump finished third, with just 14 percent of the vote.

Strong showings for McMullin and Johnson are crucial to Clinton's hopes for the state, but this year has demonstrated no shortage of surprise outcomes, and a win by the Democrat shouldn't be ruled out in one of the most reliable Republican states in the nation.

Republican candidates for president have typically received substantial support from the evangelical community. As a result of recently unearthed controversial comments, Donald Trump is in danger of losing support from at least the female half of that demographic, at least according to a Politico article this morning:

How Long Can Evangelical Woman Stay Behind Donald Trump?

Over the weekend, as Donald Trump’s sexually aggressive comments on a leaked tape blew up the news cycle and threatened to sink his candidacy, a bulwark of support emerged among male evangelical leaders. Prominent evangelicals like Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Robert Jeffress have all doubled down their support for the GOP nominee.

In the past, it might have been taken for granted that this meant the evangelical constituency would fall in line.

Not this time. On Sunday, Beth Moore, a popular speaker and Bible study author whose books have been New York Times best-sellers, spoke out about Trump and against these male evangelical leaders, tweeting, “Try to absorb how acceptable the disesteem and objectifying of women has been when some Christian leaders don’t think it’s that big a deal.” Moore, who is very popular in conservative Christian circles, usually refrains from getting involved in politics. But her take reflected an argument breaking out with renewed force among evangelical women—especially younger ones—about whether it’s really possible to support a man who writes off bragging about sexual assault as “locker room talk,” as he did in Sunday night’s debate.

It will likely take a few more days for polling to fully capture any mass defection from Trump, but if evangelical women amounting to even a few percentage points opt for another candidate or to just leave the presidential line blank on their ballots, a candidate with already slim chances of being elected will almost certainly find himself in an even bigger hole.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for Donald Trump but last night's debate performance seems, at least according to many political observers, to have at least slowed the decline. Politico offers the following assessment based on its survey of political strategists, operatives, and activists:

GOP insiders: Trump's off life support

Swing-state Republicans are breathing a sigh of relief, convinced that embattled GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump successfully took the fight to Hillary Clinton in Sunday night’s acrimonious town-hall debate...

Most importantly, Republicans think Trump stopped the bleeding — after two weeks of sliding poll numbers and a weekend of abandonment from GOP officials after video emerged of Trump coarsely describing groping women. Democrats, on the other hand, expect Trump to continue to slip in the polls after Sunday night, especially after calling for Clinton to be jailed for her use of a private email account while secretary of state.

As for the debate, Trump’s on-stage performance was well-received by most Republicans — including some who have been skeptical of his political abilities and qualifications.

It will take a few days for polls to reflect the most recent turns of the campaign, but by the end of the week it should be evident just how bad of a week Trump has had, and also provide a sense of whether the obstacles to a November victory are insurmountable.

Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence was generally judged to have had a better debate last night than Democrat Tim Kaine, though it was hardly a knockout and few expect it to make much difference, at least based on most of the commentary that followed. Here's how Bloomberg Politics described it:

Pence Succeeds in Debate Without Really Trying to Defend Trump

Calm and measured, Pence showed off his preparation for his vice-presidential showdown with Democrat Tim Kaine, fending off a slashing, interrupting opponent. The Indiana governor prepared for the debate “since the night he received the call from Mr. Trump,” a campaign aide told ABC News, enlisting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as Kaine’s stand-in during practice sessions last week.

While a marked contrast with Trump’s shaky first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton, Pence’s steady performance, which came after a dismal week of self-inflicted wounds and flagging poll numbers for the Trump campaign, may not have led the Republican ticket any closer to the White House.

Forty-eight percent of voters who watched said Pence won the debate while 42 percent said Kaine won, a CNN poll found. In an Ohio focus group for CBS News by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, 22 participants said Pence won while just four said Kaine won, though when he asked how many would change their votes as a result, the answer was zero. Pence took up a larger share of the debate conversation than Kaine on Twitter and Facebook, the companies said.

Vice presidential debates rarely have much impact on the overall race, and there seems to be little to suggest last night was any different.

There doesn't seem to be much doubt that Republican Donald Trump did not help himself last week. The question now, at least according to Politico, is whether he can turn things around:

Can Trump turn the page?

Barring a major shake-up coming out of Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between two low-wattage running mates and a mid-week Wikileaks release predicted by Trump confidant Roger Stone to be “the end of Clinton” actually coming to fruition, the Republican nominee’s next opportunity to dramatically change the race won’t come until the second presidential debate on Sunday night in St. Louis.

And Republicans, who had been buoyed by a narrowing contest until Trump’s poor showing in the first debate a week ago, are hardly optimistic that their advice-ignoring nominee will do the preparation needed to deliver a better performance in the second round. Plus, many say they are worried about what additional damage he might cause between now and then spending days spewing insults only to face a revelation that he might have avoided taxes for years.

“Donald Trump is facing a cascade of bad news and self-inflicted controversies at the worst possible moment for his candidacy,” said Ryan Williams, a GOP strategist in Washington. “He has been gaining ground in both national and battleground state polls for several weeks, but now his momentum has been blunted and undecided voters are souring on his campaign. There is even more pressure on him to turn things around by delivering a commanding performance at the second debate. He desperately needs it.”

Trump has had bad weeks before, and survived them all. So while it's too early to predict his demise, it's not to early to note that he has once again dug himself in a hole, and with less than 40 days until the election it will be a challenge for him to once again escape and repair the damage.

It might not be the headline he sought, but CNN provides coverage of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and his recent struggles:

Why is Gary Johnson still in the race?

Gary Johnson is trying to be a major figure on the world stage, and it doesn't sound like he's doing it for the company.

The Libertarian presidential nominee was asked by MSNBC's Chris Matthews during a town hall forum to name his "favorite foreign leader."

Johnson began to restate the question, and Matthews interrupted: "Any one of the continents, any country. Name one foreign leader that you respect and look up to, anybody."

Polls are able to capture what is often called a "snap shot" of a political race, providing a good assessment of where the contest is at a particular moment in time. But they don't capture everything, as an illuminating discussion by the analysts at FiveThirtyEight.com reveals:

What Could The Polls Be Missing?

Hypothesis #1: The polls are underestimating Clinton because they don’t factor in her superior ground game.

Most reports (and we’ll have an article with some extensive data on this soon) suggest that Clinton is far better organized than Trump, with more field offices, for example, and a better get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation. Isn’t that reason to think the polls are underestimating Clinton by a bit?

natesilver: That’s one of the better arguments, yeah.

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Well, the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not the field game is being picked up by the polls. In a wonderful, perfect universe, it would be. In reality, I have my doubts. That’s why I’m not entirely sold on polls showing a large gap (in Trump’s favor) between registered voter results and likely voter results.

natesilver: The empirical literature on the ground game is messy because there are so many conflating variables. But what would worry me if I were Trump is that the race isn’t that close if everyone turns out — and I have the worse turnout operation.

micah: How would the polls pick up on a better ground game?

harry: A ground game is supposed to get people to vote. So, if Clinton’s campaign is getting more people engaged, then polls that are aimed at identifying likely voters should pick up on that. More of those voters should make it through the likely voter screen.

natesilver: Well, maybe they’ll make it through the likely voter screen, but a lot of likely voter screens rely on past voting history, and may or may not have adequate provisions in place to capture new voters.

There's more insightful analysis, and anyone not convinced the polls are telling the whole story should check out the full article.

Tonight's debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will help to frame the election for the last several weeks of the campaign (but probably not determine it, as Mitt Romney learned to his sorrow after outperforming President Obama in the first debate of 2012). The Washington Post offers several things to look for in this evening's clash:

5 things to watch at the presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

For the past month, Trump has had the longtime anti-Clinton investigator David Bossie at his side, providing him with reams of information about past controversies. And during that period, Trump has mostly focused his Clinton critique on her record in office and inability to fix what he considers the country's chronically broken political and economic system. But more than once, he has delved into the tabloid aspects of Clinton history, such as when he tweeted tauntingly Saturday about inviting Gennifer Flowers, who said she had an affair with Bill Clinton, to the debate.

Monday night will provide a window into the extent to which Bossie is influencing Trump and whether he has internalized his adviser’s opposition research about 1990s-era scandals and more recent issues. Can Trump pack together points on Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street firms and her bygone advocacy for trade deals into a populist rebuke? Or does he throw around terms such as “Benghazi” and “her emails” with flair but little elucidation?...

Trump’s challenge will be articulating his jumbled ideology and describing his positions as an overture to voters in the center and on the left who are frustrated with both political parties. If he is unable to do so, he risks being defined solely on Clinton’s terms and as a hard-liner on immigration who speaks in incendiary ways about race and ethnicity. That would be a lost opportunity for Trump's populism-infused campaign.

Clinton’s ideological dance will be similarly complicated, although her challenge will be less about defining herself to the electorate at large than in rousing liberal voters who remain skeptical, notably young voters. Without lurching so far to the left that she loses her appeal to moderates, Clinton will have to convince the backers of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and those tempted by third-party candidates that she embodies their desire for advancements on social and economic policy.

There are numerous articles this morning along similar lines (see here, here, and here, for example). There may be a surprise or two this evening, but anybody reading at least a couple of these or similar articles will have a good understanding of what each candidates' opportunities and challenges are heading into tonight's debate.

According to an insightful analysis at FiveThirtyEight.com, Democrat Hillary Clinton remains positioned to win the White House - barely. From the article:

Clinton’s Leading In Exactly The States She Needs To Win

Here at FiveThirtyEight, our favorite election-related chart is what we officially call the “winding path to 270 electoral votes” and unofficially call the snake. Designed by my colleague Aaron Bycoffe, it lines the states up from most favorable for Hillary Clinton (Hawaii, Maryland) to best for Donald Trump (Wyoming, Alabama) based on the projected margin of victory in each one. The snake is bisected by a line indicating 269 electoral votes: cross this line — meaning you get 270 electoral votes — and you win the election.

Right now, Clinton is over the line by exactly one state. As of this writing, that state — what we also call the tipping-point state — is New Hampshire. But a group of states are closely lumped together, and Pennsylvania, Colorado and Wisconsin have all taken their turn as the tipping-point state in recent weeks.

If she wins all those states and everything toward the blue end of the snake, Clinton would finish with 272 electoral votes, even assuming she loses the 2nd Congressional District of Maine. (Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes by congressional district.) That’s two more than she needs to win the election.

But in different ways, that both understates and overstates how precarious Clinton’s position is. It understates it because Clinton has no margin to spare. Clinton’s polling has been somewhere between middling and awful in most of the other swing states lately, and they all at least lean toward Trump at the moment, narrowly in some cases (such as Florida) and more clearly in others (such as Iowa). If Clinton loses any of the states on the blue side of the snake without picking anything up on the red side, she’ll be stuck on 269 electoral votes or fewer.

The entire article is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand just how tight the race could be.

Donald Trump's campaign filed its fundraising reports last night (as did Hillary Clinton and Gary Johnson - Green Party candidate Jill Stein apparently failed to file by the deadline), and The Washington Post provides an interesting look at where he is spending his money:

Donald Trump finally ramped up his campaign spending. So where did the money go?

Now we can report that Trump has, at long last, ramped up his campaign spending, paying out nearly $30 million in August, according to his new Federal Election Commission filing. That's still less than Clinton, who went through $49 million, with 68 percent of her funds going to ad buys and production. But it is the most he ever spent in a month by far, and signals that the real estate developer is finally investing in the semblance of an infrastructure.

So where did the money go?

The campaign's largest investment continues to be in digital consulting and online ads. Giles-Parscale, a San Antonio-based firm whose president, Brad Parscale, serves as the Trump campaign’s digital director, was once again the biggest vendor for the month, collecting $11.1 million, much of which was directed to digital ads. The company, which got its foothold designing websites for the Trump Organization in 2011, had previously been paid $12.5 million this cycle.

The one thing that isn't clear from the article is how much of Trump's spending was devoted to fundraising efforts - some or even most of those digital ads were more about bringing in contributions than they were informing or persuading voters to support his campaign. But Trump's "lean" campaign has recently increased it's previously negligible television spending, and the next report in mid-October will give a fuller picture of just how much the Republican nominee's efforts have come to resemble more conventional presidential campaigns and how much he continues to blaze his own path.

There are fifty days until election day, and Politico marks the occasion with an article looking at where the campaign stands right now and noting that despite Hillary Clinton's significant advantages on the air and on the ground, it doesn't seem to have (yet) made a large difference:

50-day countdown begins

With just 50 days until the election, Donald Trump is facing a staggering — and perhaps historic — organizational disadvantage.

According to a POLITICO review of campaign spending, Hillary Clinton has invested seven times the amount of money on TV commercials as her Republican rival and has established twice as many field offices in many of the states that will decide who wins the presidency. In many battlegrounds, she has dozens more organizers than Trump.

While Trump, a first-time politician who has surrounded himself with advisers who are new to the rigors of presidential campaigns, has made serious headway in a number of battlegrounds in recent days, his on-the-ground and in-the-air deficits could be what stands between him and 270 electoral votes....

Some are coming to the conclusion that the New York businessman’s lack of swing-state infrastructure might not be fatal. Throughout his campaign, Trump has invested relatively little on TV ads and field deployment – instead surviving off his ability to pack rallies and generate overwhelming media attention for speeches and statements large and small. On Thursday morning, during a meeting convened by Trump’s congressional supporters on Capitol Hill, Conway said the Republican nominee would give multiple addresses each week focusing on specific policies he’d implement as president.

Expect more articles along these lines as additional artificial dates are hit (forty days until election, five weeks until the election, etc.). But contrived as they will be, they will be helpful in understanding what are likely to be a turbulent final phase of the campaign.

The campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has had a rough week, and the polls are reflecting it. The Hill offers this analysis:

Polls darken for Democrats

Trump has pulled into the lead in Florida and Ohio, two crucial states where he has trailed Clinton for most of the race, and several states that once looked out of reach for Trump — Colorado and Virginia, among them — suddenly appear competitive.

One survey showed Trump swinging to a lead in Nevada, a state that President Obama carried with ease during both of his presidential campaigns. And a poll of Iowa, which has only gone for the GOP nominee once in the last seven elections, found Trump ahead by 8 points....

While Clinton led Trump by an average of 7.6 percentage points one month ago, her advantage is now down to a meager 1.8 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average.

Read the whole piece, it's well worth the time to see where the race is set today.

Hillary Clinton's comment last week saying that half of Donald Trump's supporters were "deplorables... racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it," has become a significant risk not only to her, but to her rival as well, at least according to CBS:

Political risk for all in Trump-Clinton "deplorables" debate

Trump and his allies across the country insisted Tuesday that the Democratic presidential nominee’s comments reflect an out-of-touch elitist who looks down on working-class voters, akin to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s assertion that 47 percent of Americans would never vote for him because they were dependent on the government. Democrats - and even some Republicans - warned, however, that this debate could backfire on Trump, drawing new attention to white supremacists and hate groups attracted by his “America first” message....

Trump and his team seized on the comments​ as his supporters across the country embraced a new rallying cry.

“While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable, I call you hardworking American patriots,” Trump declared at a Clive, Iowa, rally.

It's an interesting piece, but it focuses more on the danger to Trump (which is real), and less on Clinton, which is curious since the issue threatens to become her own "47 percent" comment (a statement in 2012 by GOP nominee Mitt Romney about 47 percent of Americans being dependent on government proved to be hugely controversial and was seen as derogatory towards many citizens) and because the Trump campaign seems to be competently handling the issue. Still, it is a useful explanation of how Clinton isn't the only one jeopardized by her comment.

The subject of Hillary Clinton's health suddenly became a major topic over the weekend, following her early departure from a 9-11 memorial service and video of her stumbling that came to light shortly afterwards. As ABC News reports, the issue comes at a critical juncture for the presumed favorite to win the White House:

Hillary Clinton's Health Scare Creates Major Campaign Moment

It is far easier to argue that your opponent is not fit to serve if you can provide confidence that you are fit to serve yourself.

That's part of how Sunday's medical episode involving Hillary Clinton, followed by contradictory and incomplete explanations from Clinton's campaign, makes for a major campaign moment that has the potential to upend the race to the White House.

Fitness now takes on literal meaning and outsized importance in a tumultuous campaign that already seemed to see everything. Questions around Clinton's health figure to compete for space with how Clinton's campaign handled the fallout for at least the next few days, if not right through Election Day.

One bad health spell -– assuming it's only that –- could have the impact of legitimizing concerns raised by an opponent that Clinton has been actively seeking to delegitimize. It puts Clinton's allies in an awkward spot in what was already set to be a difficult phase of her campaign.

The danger for the Clinton campaign is compounded by the fact that, so far, Donald Trump and his campaign have shown uncharacteristic restraint and avoided trampling the storyline. With Trump narrowing gap in recent days, the way both campaigns handle the touchy issue of Clinton's health could re-set the race entirely.