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Republican Delaware Senate hopeful Christine O鈥橠onnell will debate her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, at the University of Delaware campus Wednesday night.

For Ms. O鈥橠onnell, the math is stark: She鈥檚 20 points or so behind in the polls. That means that for her the debate is much more important than it is for Mr. Coons.

What could she do to try to turn things around?

First of all, don鈥檛 act surprised by all the attention.

And there will be lots of attention 鈥� the first hour of the O鈥橠onnell-Coons faceoff is scheduled to be broadcast live on CNN. When U of D started handing out tickets to students and the public on Monday, the line quickly burst free of the bounds of the Trabant University Center and extended outside, down the side of the building.

What鈥檚 going on here? You鈥檇 think one of the participants in the debate was going to show up dressed as a ... New Castle County Executive. (That鈥檚 Mr. Coons's current job.)

Second, define yourself.

Everybody鈥檚 heard all those stories about witchcraft dabbling, and so forth, but Wednesday night will be O鈥橠onnell鈥檚 first and best chance to introduce herself to Delaware voters unfiltered. If her ads are any indication, she will continue to say of herself, 鈥�I鈥檓 you鈥� 鈥� as in, 鈥淚鈥檓 a regular Delawarean.鈥� This approach would be helped by lots of references to regular-person stuff, like struggles with money and her nonownership of any Ivy League degrees. (Coons has two from Yale.)

If unfortunate past statements come up, don鈥檛 get defensive. Just sigh, and say that everybody did stuff in their youth that they regret later. To an adult, what鈥檚 adolescence but a foreign country?

In her modified limited media rollout of recent days, in which she鈥檚 sat down for interviews with mainly local reporters, O鈥橠onnell has done pretty well with this approach.

Third is the hard part: make the election about Coons as much you can.

In her ads, O鈥橠onnell has already pivoted from the soft sell about herself to hard-edged attacks on her opponent. She鈥檚 running a spot called the 鈥淭he Taxman鈥� that mimics a horror movie trailer and depicts Coons as the revenue-raising scourge of New Castle County.

On stage it is probably better to attack while maintaining a smile, but O鈥橠onnell is 20 points behind, so she has to shake things up somehow. It will be interesting to see what she tries.

And Coons?

His first and highest task is to not take victory for granted. Rep. Mike Castle may have done that in the GOP Senate primary 鈥� he still had lots of cash on hand near the end of the campaign that he appeared to be hoarding for the general election. Look what happened to him.

Congressman Castle has so far declined to endorse O鈥橠onnell, saying that the primary was just too bitter and personal. But in a CNN interview set for broadcast tonight he gives credit to the Tea Party Express and other organizations which backed O鈥橠onnell against him.

鈥淭hey did an effective job of winning the race for her, and, you know, they鈥檙e probably going to be very effective in setting up the last few weeks of the general election as well, if I had to guess,鈥� Castle tells CNN鈥檚 John King, according to an advance copy of the transcript.