Clinton counts clear advantages as campaign enters homestretch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two months from Election Day, Hillary Clinton has a clear edge over Donald Trump in nearly every measure traditionally used to gauge success in presidential races.
She’s raising huge sums of money and flooding airwaves with television advertisements. A sophisticated data team with a history of winning White House contests is meticulously tracking voters in key battleground states. Clinton also has multiple paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win in November — so many that she could lose Ohio and Florida and still become America’s first female president.
But Trump’s campaign believes there are pockets of voters eager to be persuaded not to back Clinton. Trump aides were gleeful Friday over the release of FBI notes regarding Clinton’s controversial email practices while secretary of state.
His campaign plans to come out of the Labor Day weekend wielding the report as a warning about the Democrat’s judgment.
Advisers say he’s more receptive to his new leadership team’s more scripted approach, mostly because it’s coincided with a tightening in the public polls he monitors obsessively.
“There’s a renewed focus on Hillary Clinton and her problems, which I think has been beneficial,” said Matt Borges, the chairman of Ohio’s Republican Party. “He’s got to sustain this for another couple weeks.”
Both campaigns expect enormous audiences for the debates. Clinton, who has been in intensive study sessions with her debate team in recent days, is sure to face higher expectations from voters. Trump’s political inexperience leaves him with a lower bar to clear.
Clinton aides, meanwhile, are monitoring movement toward a pair of third party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
“There’s no question you’ve got two candidates who are both underwater on their favorables right now,” Joel Benenson, Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, said by way of explaining the appeal of Johnson and Stein.
Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine will have an all-star stable of Democrats making that case on their behalf through the fall.
President Barack Obama is expected to spend much of October campaigning for Clinton, focusing in particular on increasing turnout among young people, blacks and college-educated whites. Vice President Joe Biden will camp out in working class areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s vanquished primary rival, will be rallying the young voters and liberals who backed his campaign.