It would be overstating things considerably to say any single ad ever won a presidential candidate an election, but in 2004, there was one that came pretty close. It was done by an independent group called the Progress for America Voter Fund, and it was in support of George W. Bush.

The 2004 race, of course, was carried out in the long shadow of 9/11 and the ongoing misery of the Iraq War, and it became a referendum on whether or not Bush was keeping the country safe. Democrats seemingly had a strong factual case to make that he was not. Republicans had two responses, both of them emotion-based. One was to prey upon voters' fears by portraying John Kerry as feckless and weak, as this famous ad featuring Kerry windsurfing did. The other was to build up Bush as forceful and strong. The ad from the Progress for America Voter Fund did this, but in an unusual way.

It featured a 16-year-old Ohio girl named Ashley Faulkner, whose mother was killed in the 9/11 attacks, and an unscripted, emotional moment the girl shared with Bush. In May of 2004, Faulkner went to see the president at a campaign stop in her Ohio hometown, where a family friend caught his attention and told the president her story. Narrating her interaction with Bush over some sappy piano music, Faulkner recalls, "He turned around and came back and said, 'I know that's hard. Are you all right?'" Then Bush hugged her. "He's the most powerful man in the world," Faulkner says, "and all he wants to do is make sure I'm safe, that I'm okay." The spot wound up running in nine states and, at $14.2 million, was the most expensive ad of the 2004 election. As Eric Boehlert (no Bush fan, he) later put it, it was "perhaps the most widely seen, and effective, television commercial of the 2004 campaign."

I mention all this because today, Hillary Clinton released a campaign ad that, to my mind, rivals Bush's Ashley Faulkner one. It features an unscripted, emotional campaign-trail moment between Clinton and a little girl in Las Vegas. But, because this is 2016, the moment isn't re-created, it plays out in real time (the video almost appears to have been shot with a cell phone); and the moment isn't about terrorism, it's about immigration.

The ad shows a Clinton campaign event in Las Vegas this past weekend where, during a question-and-answer session, a Latino girl who doesn't look any older than 11 or 12 tells Clinton that her parents are undocumented immigrants and, her voice breaking, she's scared that they're going to be deported. Clinton calls the girl up to the front of the room and has her sit on her lap. There, seemingly blinking back tears herself, Clinton tells the girl that she's very brave (the title of the spot) and that she shouldn't worry. "Let me do the worrying," Clinton says. "I'll do everything I can to help, okay?" The ad ends with Clinton hugging the girl, applause, and a shot of a member of the audience dabbing at her eyes.

So far in this race, Bernie Sanders's ads—whether they feature Simon and Garfunkel or the daughter of Eric Garner—have packed an emotional punch that Clinton's have simply lacked. But with "Brave," I think Clinton has easily equaled Sanders's best spots, if not surpassed them. Clinton's ad is obviously targeted at Hispanic voters in Nevada, who play a critical role in that state's caucuses this Saturday. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if the ad keeps playing elsewhere—and strikes a chord with non-Hispanic voters as well.