THEY’RE WITH HER
Polls often show a majority of U.S. voters find Clinton dishonest and inauthentic. But the Democratic nominee has an overlooked and large base of devoted admirers
PHILADELPHIA— She gets home from the office around six. She feeds her teenagers. And then, around eight, Kim Mallonn, an Ohio human resources executive who has never been any kind of political activist, sits down in her suburban family room and wages a “one-woman Twitter war.”
Mallonn, 50, is just as committed to her cause as the aggrieved Donald Trump fans who have been exhaustively profiled in the media. But she is part of a group that has been treated as close to nonexistent amid the flood of features on Trump’s angry army: people who really, really like Hillary Clinton.
Yes, for real, it’s true. The woman favoured to be elected president next week has a large number of fierce devotees.
Like most Democrats, Clinton does well with visible minorities of all types. But Ben Tulchin, a Democratic strategist who was the pollster for the Bernie Sanders campaign Clinton defeated, said her greatest strength is Democratic women age 50 and older, who not only support her but “identify with her.”
“That’s why she won the primary, quite frankly: She just had a bedrock of support, Democratic women over 50, who didn’t budge at all,” Tulchin said. “Even when polling has kind of waxed and waned, she’s always had that base of support, and that base hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s made a huge difference.”
The base is millions strong. In one recent ABC tracking poll, 56 per cent of Clinton voters said they were voting for her more than voting against Trump — versus just 41 per cent of Trump voters who said they were voting for him more than against Clinton.
Mallonn, for example, doesn’t feel like she’s choosing the lesser of two evils. She feels she has found — refound — the candidate she has been waiting for.
Sure, her “war” involves tweets about how Trump is a “giant baby” and a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.” But she’s also sharing uplifting posts about Clinton. She would prefer her to any Republican.
“I don’t even really know how to put it into words,” Mallonn said, “other than to say the idea of having someone with the understanding and experience of being a woman, and being a woman in a male-dominated profession, in the highest office, is exciting to me.”
Older Democratic women, Tulchin said, care most about the historic nature of Clinton’s candidacy. They empathize with her professional experiences and career sacrifices. And as women who came of age during the era of second-wave feminism, he said, they are enthused by the active, political tenure as first lady that alienated older men.
His conclusions were confirmed in interviews with15 of Clinton’s female supporters from around the country. They all said they were eager to see a woman in the Oval Office. But they were especially attached to this woman.
They respect her intelligence, work ethic and resilience. They relate to both her stumbles and successes. The controversies that have dogged her for three decades have only made them like her more. “What that woman has been put through in her public life, and her private life. And she has stood there with dignity all of these years,” said homemaker Rose Marie Nin, 70, in line for Clinton’s rally last week in Philadelphia.
Where Sanders bitter-enders see a centrist or conservative posing as a progressive, her core supporters see a committed liberal with the record to prove it. Where Trump backers see a “career politician,” they see a public servant with critical experience.
“Years and years and years she’s dedicated to public service and helping families and helping children. How many people can say that?” said civil engineer Amy Kroeger, 43, in the Philadelphia line.
“She has life experience, she has experience in politics, and I want her to be the president,” said university official Rita Rowand, 59, outside a café in Warrenton, Va. Trump voters, seeking major change, view Clinton as an agent of a failed status quo. Clinton’s loyal followers assess the country differently. They find comfort in a candidate who vows to pursue incremental change but also protect gains already made.
The Obama era produced millions of winners uninterested in radical transformation. Mallonn has a brother with a disability who finally got health insurance because of Obamacare and a gay brother who is now married in Texas.
“I feel like we’ve made some great progress,” she said, “and I feel like she’ll help to continue to push those things forward.”
Clinton devotees are not all thriving, educated professionals. Bobbi Green, 41, is a mother and high school graduate in Eau Claire, Wis., who lost her job as an office manager when the recession hit. But she identifies with the career of a wealthy Ivy League lawyer.
Fifteen years ago when she had twins, Green quit another job to take care of the kids, allowing her husband to pursue his sales career. She is infuriated when “absolute morons” accuse Hillary Clinton of riding on Bill Clinton’s coattails.
“That is so insulting,” she said, her voice rising. “How many of us have sat home and made career choices that have hurt our own careers for the sake of our husband?” She added: “I think if they did a little history, they’d see it is she that’s been carrying him.”
A majority of the electorate finds Clinton dishonest and inauthentic. Clinton devotees see her as caring and truthful, her reputation the product of unfair, gendered criticism and caricature.
“I think a lot of people find her cold and aloof. I don’t find that at all when I watch her. I see a very warm soul,” said Jennifer Hajkowski, 41, a high school teacher at the Philadelphia rally.
Green, a former foster child, was still in high school, struggling to get by, when she began sympathizing with the first lady.
“She had to change her hair and take off her glasses and act this certain way, and it had to be hurtful and degrading for her, but she did it. Can you imagine being that person, though?” Green said. “‘Oh, I wasn’t pretty enough. I wasn’t wife-y enough. I had the wrong name. My glasses were thick. I wasn’t wearing fashionable clothes.’ How absolutely ridiculous. I don’t think guys understand what that’s like.”
Clinton, whose rally speeches can sound stilted, has struggled to excite the young voters who were thrilled by Obama’s gifts as a communicator. But for some women of her generation, both professionals and homemakers, her preference for quiet labour over grandiose performance is familiar.
Betsy True, 61, is a quiltmaker in Alexandria, Va., who had a previous career in computers at the defence department, a male-dominated workplace where her opinions were sometimes treated with sexist disdain. She said she admires how Clinton managed to work together in the Senate with people who voted to impeach her husband — and how she did not show off.
“She just did the work,” True said. “Put her head down, did the work.”
At the final presidential debate, Trump called Clinton a “nasty woman.” True, like thousands of other women, added “Nasty” to her Twitter name in solidarity.
“If she’s nasty,” True said, “then there are a lot of us that are nasty out there.”
“Years and years and years she’s dedicated to public service and helping families and helping children. How many people can say that?” AMY KROEGER CLINTON SUPPORTER