Second Presidential Debate Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: Time, How to Watch and What to Expect

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton are set to face off in a town hall debate Sunday night at 9 p.m. EST at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri — a debate that went from "highly anticipated" to "must-watch television" as both nominees were confronted with their share of controversial news in the last 48 hours.

Political suspense had already been building with analysts puzzling over whether or not Trump could resurrect his campaign after a poor performance in the first presidential debate compounded by a rough couple of weeks for Trump — the combination of which resulted in a drop in almost every poll in recent weeks. The other part of the puzzle: Could Clinton hold her hand steady through another 90 minutes of clashing with Trump?

If that wasn't enough pressure for the New York businessman to give a stellar performance at Sunday night's debate, on Friday evening Trump came under fire after a video from 2005 surfaced in which he boasts of his attempts to have sex with married women and how being a "star" allows him to kiss, grope and have sex with women whenever he sees fit.

On the same evening, new scrutiny was placed on Hillary Clinton after WikiLeaks released its latest batch of documents related to her campaign that reveal, among other things, excerpts of private speeches to the financial sector that are believed to have earned her more than $25 million.

While media attention has firmly focused on Trump and the debacle has landed him in disfavor among many in the Republican party leadership, Republican voters clearly don't see it the same way, according to a poll released on Sunday morning.

Overall, 39 percent of registered voters say Trump should end his bid for the White House, while 45 percent think he should march on, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll. However, there's a large ideological gulf in those findings: 70 percent of Democrats say Trump should leave the race, while just 12 percent of Republicans agree. Even among Republican women, only 13 percent say Trump should end his bid.

The Clinton campaign appears to have made a conscious decision to remain silent during Trump's troubles ahead of tonight's debate, preferring not to pile on the already-intense condemnation of her opponent.

Even during the debate, Clinton may not have to say a word about it because of the town hall format — something that's not lost on the Clinton camp.

"How can you get in front of this story? You wouldn’t want to if you could," longtime Clinton ally and political strategist James Carville told The Washington Post.

Clinton's running mate, Tim Kaine, said undecided voters in the audience would take care of that line of questioning.

"I don't exactly know what she is going to say about it during the debate," Kaine told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday. "I think it's time for Donald Trump to answer and take responsibility." He added: "I just can't imagine that undecided voters as part of this town hall will not want to hear him explain why he thought that was acceptable behavior."

Trump, however, has remained defiant, telling the Wall Street Journal that there is "zero chance I'll quit."

His strategy is to attack the party leaders as those who never supported him in the first place, vowing to win without them.

"A lot of the people who are being so critical now are the same ones who doubted him before," read a set of talking points sent to Trump surrogates on Sunday morning, which were obtained by The New York Times. "They are more concerned with their political future than they are about the future of the country. Mr. Trump won the Primary without the help of the insiders and he’ll win the General without them, too."

Per his usual, Trump took to Twitter to offer the shorthand of that message.

Trump — and Clinton — could try to dodge some of the hard questions from debate moderators Martha Raddatz of ABC News and Anderson Cooper of CNN — it's even somewhat expected. However, with the town hall-style format where half of the questions will come from the audience and social media, sidestepping uncomfortable questions from private citizens rarely plays out well to the millions of viewers who likely have the same questions on their minds.

Going into Sunday's debate, Clinton is pulling away in the polls. In recent national polling, Clinton leads head-to-head match-ups against Trump, with the Democrat holding 47.5 percent support compared to 42.9 percent for the New York businessman, according to averages compiled by RealClear Politics.

On Sept. 26, the date of the previous presidential debate, Clinton led by just 2.3 percentage points — 46.6 percent to 44.3 percent, according to RealClear Politics.

Join us for the Patch live stream at 9 p.m. tonight!

The Debate Details:

When: Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016
Time: 9 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. EST; no commercial breaks
Where: Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
Who: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, moderators Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News; Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein failed to make the debate based on recent polling.
Viewing: The debate will be aired live on C-SPAN, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, as well as all cable news channels including CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, among others.
Format: The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which half of the questions will be posed directly by citizen participants and the other half will be posed by the moderator based on topics of broad public interest as reflected in social media and other sources, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The candidates will have two minutes to respond, and there will be an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate further discussion. The town meeting participants will be uncommitted voters selected by the Gallup Organization.

Follow more of Patch's debate coverage:

• Mike Pence to Tim Kaine: 'You Whipped Out That Mexican Thing Again,' Inspires ThatMexicanThing.com
• Hillary Clinton Exposes Donald Trump's Pressure Points in First Presidential Debate
• Presidential Debate Moderators Announced By Commission
• Poll: Presidential Debates Expected To Be Watched by 75 Percent of Voters; Anderson Cooper is Crowd Favorite
• Hillary Clinton Ally: Drop Fox News Presidential Debate Moderator Chris Wallace Over Conflict of Interest

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons