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Hillary Clinton Presses Her Advantage Over a Struggling Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Presses Her Advantage Over a Struggling Donald Trump
(about 7 hours later)
Hillary Clinton moved to press her advantage in the presidential race on Sunday, urging black voters in North Carolina to vote early as Republicans increasingly conceded that Donald J. Trump is unlikely to recover in the polls. Hillary Clinton moved aggressively on Sunday to press her advantage in the presidential race, urging black voters in North Carolina to vote early and punish Republican officeholders for supporting Donald J. Trump, even as Mr. Trump’s party increasingly concedes he is unlikely to recover in the polls.
With a strong lead in national polls, Mrs. Clinton has been pleading with core Democratic constituencies to get out and vote in states where balloting has already begun. By running up a lead well in advance of the Nov. 8 election in states like North Carolina and Florida, she could make it extraordinarily difficult for Mr. Trump to mount a late comeback. Aiming to turn her edge over Mr. Trump into an unbreakable lead, Mrs. Clinton has been pleading with core Democratic constituencies to get out and vote in states where balloting has already begun. By running up a lead well in advance of the Nov. 8 election in states like North Carolina and Florida, she could virtually eliminate Mr. Trump’s ability to make a late comeback.
On Sunday, Mrs. Clinton appeared at a church in Raleigh, N.C., with mothers who have lost children to gun violence or clashes with the police. Addressing the congregation, she sounded like a candidate looking past the election to a presidency in which she would have to address a deeply divided nation. At times, Mrs. Clinton is going beyond seeking simply a victory over Mr. Trump, asking voters to strengthen her hand in Congress and repudiate not just Mr. Trump but also Republicans who have accommodated or endorsed him.
“There are many people in our country willing to reach across the divide, regardless of what you’ve heard in this campaign,” Mrs. Clinton said. “There are people — millions and millions of people — who are asking themselves these hard questions, who want to find a way to work together to solve these problems that we face.” After lashing Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania in a speech on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton urged voters at an outdoor rally in Raleigh, N.C., to elect a Democratic governor and to turn Senator Richard M. Burr out of office.
Geneva Reed-Veal, whose daughter, Sandra Bland, died in a Texas jail after a traffic stop last summer, called on the congregation to make its voice heard at the polls. “If you decide not to vote, shut your mouth,” Ms. Reed-Veal said. Calling Mr. Burr’s Democratic challenger, Deborah Ross, “exactly the kind of partner I need in the United States Senate,” Mrs. Clinton upbraided Mr. Burr for failing to reject Mr. Trump.
Both Mrs. Clinton and key Republican groups have effectively pushed aside Mr. Trump since the final presidential debate on Wednesday, treating him as a defeated candidate and turning their attention to voter turnout and battling for control of Congress. “Unlike her opponent, Deborah has never been afraid to stand up to Donald Trump,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding, “She knows that people of courage and principles need to come together to reject this dangerous and divisive agenda.”
An ABC News tracking poll published on Sunday showed Mr. Trump trailing Mrs. Clinton by 12 percentage points nationally and drawing just 38 percent of the vote. It is a sign of the extraordinarily lopsided nature of the presidential race that, even in a Republican-controlled state like North Carolina, Mrs. Clinton is in a position to exhort voters to hand control of the Senate to Democrats. Though she is still not broadly popular, Mrs. Clinton has cast her candidacy — and now, perhaps, her party — as a safe harbor for voters across the political mainstream who find Mr. Trump intolerable.
Seeming to peer past the end of the race, Mrs. Clinton offered herself as a figure of conciliation during a visit to a black church in Raleigh on Sunday.
“There are many people in our country willing to reach across the divide, regardless of what you’ve heard in this campaign,” she said.
For Republicans, blunting Mrs. Clinton’s ability to carry other Democrats into office has become the overriding imperative in the final weeks of the 2016 race. With Mr. Trump so diminished as a competitor for Mrs. Clinton, Republicans say they will now ask voters in newly explicit terms to elect a divided government rather than giving Mrs. Clinton unchecked power.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a powerful “super PAC” that supports Republicans in the House of Representatives, is to begin running ads in the coming days that attack Democratic candidates as “rubber stamps” for Mrs. Clinton and urge voters in swing districts to support Republicans instead.
Mike Shields, the group’s president, said it had tested that message and found it effective in closely contested races, even with voters who are likely to support Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump.
“There are many districts where we are going to be running ads that talk about the Democrat being a rubber stamp for Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Shields said. “In many districts, it is a very, very potent weapon to use against a Democratic candidate for Congress.”
Republicans fear Mr. Trump will do grievous damage to the party unless he can close the yawning gap with Mrs. Clinton in the presidential race. An ABC News tracking poll published on Sunday showed him trailing Mrs. Clinton by 12 percentage points nationally and drawing just 38 percent of the vote.
Mrs. Clinton, who drew support from 50 percent of voters in the poll, was openly dismissive of Mr. Trump over the weekend, telling reporters on Saturday that she no longer worried about answering his attacks. “I debated him for four and a half hours,” she said. “I don’t even think about responding to him anymore.”Mrs. Clinton, who drew support from 50 percent of voters in the poll, was openly dismissive of Mr. Trump over the weekend, telling reporters on Saturday that she no longer worried about answering his attacks. “I debated him for four and a half hours,” she said. “I don’t even think about responding to him anymore.”
Karl Rove, the chief strategist of George W. Bush’s successful presidential campaigns, said Sunday on Fox News that he did not expect that Mr. Trump could pull off a comeback in the final two weeks of campaigning. Karl Rove, the chief strategist of George W. Bush’s successful presidential campaigns, said Sunday on Fox News that he no longer believed Mr. Trump had a realistic path to victory against Mrs. Clinton.
“I don’t see it happening,” Mr. Rove said.“I don’t see it happening,” Mr. Rove said.
Two outside groups aligned with Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Senate Leadership Fund, have begun running television commercials in Senate races implying that Mr. Trump’s defeat is likely and asking voters to send Republican lawmakers to Washington as a check on Mrs. Clinton. In addition to trailing by a wide margin in national polls, Mr. Trump has fallen well behind Mrs. Clinton in states that are likely to determine control of the Senate, including North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida and New Hampshire, and also in suburban areas around the country that are critical to the Republicans’ House majority.
And the Congressional Leadership Fund, a powerful “super PAC” that supports Republicans in the House of Representatives, will begin running ads in the coming days that attack Democratic candidates as “rubber stamps” for Mrs. Clinton, and urge voters in swing districts to support a Republican instead. Two outside groups aligned with Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Senate Leadership Fund, have also begun running television commercials in Senate races that imply that Mrs. Clinton is likely to be the next president and that ask voters to limit her power by supporting Republicans.
Mike Shields, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, said the group had tested the message and found it effective even in areas that are likely to support Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, acknowledged on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on NBC that Mr. Trump was trailing. She said the campaign had “a shot” at winning over undecided voters who do not now support Mr. Trump but who dislike Mrs. Clinton.
“There are many districts where we are going to be running ads that talk about the Democrat being a rubber stamp for Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Shields said. “In many districts, it is a very, very potent weapon to use against a Democratic candidate for Congress.” But Mr. Trump has made little effort in recent days to deliver a sharply honed campaign message or to address the flaws at the core of his candidacy. In his public remarks, Mr. Trump has delivered an insular and self-referential closing message, dwelling on personal frustrations at the expense of any wider appeal to voters. In a Saturday speech that was intended to outline his closing message in the race, Mr. Trump instead began by threatening to sue the women who have come forward to say that he had sexually assaulted them.
Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, acknowledged on “Meet the Press” on NBC that Mr. Trump was behind in the race. She said the campaign had “a shot” at winning over undecided voters who do not currently support Mr. Trump but who dislike Mrs. Clinton. Campaigning on Sunday in Florida, where early voting is set to begin in most counties on Monday, Mr. Trump attacked Mrs. Clinton’s national security record, but swerved repeatedly from his script. At one point, he suggested that the American-backed offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq, from the Islamic State was merely an effort by President Obama to “show what a tough guy he is before the election.”
But Mr. Trump has made little effort in recent days to deliver a sharply honed campaign message or to address the flaws at the core of his candidacy. He scheduled no public campaign events on Sunday before an evening rally in Naples, Fla., though early voting begins this week across most of the state. And Mr. Trump appeared to acknowledge the growing separation between him and other Republicans, even as he asked voters to elect a friendly Congress and help him “re-elect Republicans all over the place.”
In a Saturday speech that was intended to outline his closing message in the race, Mr. Trump instead began by issuing a broad threat to sue all the women who have come forward to say that he sexually assaulted them. “I hope they help me, too,” Mr. Trump said in Naples, Fla. “It would be nice if they help us, too, right? To enact my first 100 days.”
Ms. Conway said on Sunday that the threat was “a small piece of a 42-minute speech.” While there are two weeks of campaigning left in the race, the window for Mr. Trump to resurrect his candidacy grows slimmer by the day, now that voting is underway in a number of important states.
Mrs. Clinton is expected to spend two days this week in Florida, and also to return to North Carolina for a campaign event with Michelle Obama, the first lady, in a bid to lock down two states without which Mr. Trump has no realistic route to the White House.
Her campaign has deployed surrogates across the map, including Republican-leaning states like Arizona, where former Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly — leading gun-control advocates who have strongly backed Mrs. Clinton — were headlining a get-out-the-vote event in Tucson on Sunday. Mr. Kelly said Arizona had become a “winnable state” for Mrs. Clinton, but said Democrats could not take anything for granted.
“It is not over by any stretch,” Mr. Kelly, a retired astronaut, said in an interview. “Strange things can happen in elections and polling numbers can move very fast, and people can get complacent.”
At a Raleigh church a few hours earlier, Mrs. Clinton appeared with a group of mothers who had lost their children through gun violence or interactions with the police, to deliver much the same message.
Geneva Reed-Veal, whose daughter, Sandra Bland, died in a Texas jail after a traffic stop last summer, called on the congregation to make its voice heard at the polls.
“If you decide not to vote,” Ms. Reed-Veal said, “shut your mouth.”