Trump, Clinton take different strategies to shore up votes
PEMBROKE PINES: Donald Trump is promising to take his campaign into traditional Democratic territory as a sign that he’s not giving up on appealing to people outside the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton is focusing her efforts in the campaign’s final days on energizing voters who usually support the Democratic nominee, but may need an extra boost. To do that, Clinton is pressing her case with music and sports celebrities, a strategy Trump dismissed. “I just have me,” he told supporters in North Carolina on Saturday, “but I have my family.” With him was his wife, Melania, who rarely campaigns with her husband.
A brief scare Saturday night disrupted Trump’s rally in Reno, Nevada, when Secret Service agents suddenly hustled the Republican nominee off the stage. The agency later said that someone near the stage had shouted “Gun!” but that a subsequent apprehension of a man and search revealed no weapon. Trump returned a few minutes later to resume his remarks and declared “We will never be stopped.”
As if to prove that point, Trump scheduled rallies Sunday in Minnesota, which hasn’t supported a Republican nominee since 1972, and Michigan, which hasn’t since 1988. Polls show that unlikely to change this year, but Trump was including them in a single day of campaigning covering five states.
Clinton faced dark skies, intense rain and strong wind in Florida on Saturday before appearing in Pennsylvania with pop singer Katy Perry. The Democratic nominee was preparing to campaign Sunday with basketball superstar Lebron James, having shared the stage Friday night with music diva beyoncè and hip hop mogul husband Jay Z. “Tonight, I want to hear you roar,” a smiling Clinton said before introducing Perry for a Saturday night performance in Philadelphia.
‘Madam President’
Perry, who hugged Clinton while wearing a purple cap bearing the words, “I’m with Madam President,” shouted, “In three days, let’s make history!” The final-days scramble highlighted sharp differences between the campaigns in a turbulent 2016 campaign season. Backed by President Barack Obama and her party’s political elite, Clinton spent much of the last year fighting to unify Obama’s coalition of minorities and younger voters, aided at times by Trump’s deep unpopularity among women in both parties.
Trump has courted working-class white voters on the strength of his own celebrity, having scared off many wouldbe Republican allies during a campaign marred by extraordinary gaffes and self-created crises. Just four weeks ago, a video emerged in which a married Trump admitted to kissing women and grabbing their genitalia without their permission.
Clinton also faced extraordinary challenges of her own in recent days after the FBI confirmed plans to renew its focus on the former secretary of state’s email practices. The development is seen as particularly threatening for Clinton in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire that don’t offer early voting.
At least 41 million Americans across 48 states have already cast ballots, according to an Associated Press analysis. That’s significantly more votes four days before Election Day than voted early in the 2012. House Speaker Paul Ryan campaigned Saturday alongside Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence - a rare show of unity, but not with Trump himself. The speaker encouraged Republicans to “come home” to support Trump in Ryan’s home-state Wisconsin, ignoring for a day his icy relationship with the Republican nominee.