Clinton seeking more early voters

Hillary Clinton moved to press her advantage in the presidential race Sunday, urging black voters in North Carolina to vote early as Republicans increasingly conceded that Donald Trump is unlikely to recover in the polls.

With a strong lead in national polls, 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 Trump to mount a late comeback.

On Sunday, 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.

“There are many people in our country willing to reach across the divide, regardless of what you’ve heard in this campaign,” 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.”

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,” Reed-Veal said.

Both Clinton and key Republican groups have effectively pushed aside Trump since the final presidential debate Wednesday, treating him as a defeated candidate and turning their attention to voter turnout and battling for control of Congress.

An ABC News tracking poll published Sunday showed Trump trailing Clinton by 12 percentage points nationally and drawing just 38 percent of the vote.

Clinton, who drew support from 50 percent of voters in the poll, was openly dismissive of Trump over the weekend, telling reporters 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, chief strategist of George W. Bush’s successful presidential campaigns, said Sunday on Fox News that he did not expect that Trump could pull off a comeback in the final two weeks of campaigning.

“I don’t see it happening,” Rove said.