Clinton making strong pitch for Sanders’ Millennial voters
Hillary Clinton’s campaign began airing a radio ad Tuesday aimed at swing-state Millennials that tries to address a big problem for the Democratic presidential nominee: Too many young voters see little difference between her and Donald Trump.
“Thinking about staying home? The difference between staying home and showing up is the difference between justice and injustice,” the narrator says in the ad airing in Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Ohio. “Look, no candidate in any election is perfect. But the choice is easy this time . ... This guy Trump disrespects President Obama, insults communities of color and wants to turn back the clock.”
As the race has tightened, the Clinton campaign is making a major push to win over younger people, particularly those who voted in Democratic primaries and backed her opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, by a 3-1 ratio.
Sanders, Obama and another
favorite of younger Democrats, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, DMass., have all been campaigning for Clinton in recent days with Millennial-themed pitches. Even though polls show young voters may not like the GOP nominee or agree with his policies, the possibility of a Trump presidency hasn’t prompted Millennials to flock to Clinton in large numbers.
On Monday, Clinton told a crowd made up largely of students at Temple University in Philadelphia, “You may still have some questions about me. I get that.”
There is little question that Clinton will do better than Trump among Millennials, those born between the late 1970s and the late 1990s. But she needs to do as well as Obama did in his victories in 2008 (67 percent of young voters) and 2012 (60 percent) to overcome the Republican nominee’s advantage among older voters. She is falling short of that goal.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll last week showed that among young voters, 44 percent backed Clinton, 24 percent supported Trump, 20 percent were for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and 6 percent backed Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
In particular, Clinton still has a long way to go to win over Sanders’ supporters, many of whom are eligible to vote in a presidential election for the first time.
“She has to realize that we’re not Democrats. We’re independents,” said Moumita Ahmed, a lead organizer for Millennials for Revolution, a Sanders-inspired national network that reaches 6 million young people through social media and grassroots organizing. “It’s not about Trump. Everybody knows Trump is terrible. Nobody denies that. But a lot of people still feel that her record doesn’t match her rhetoric.”
Ahmed and other Sanders backers say Clinton endorsed a higher minimum wage, a tougher stance on fracking and a stronger college affordability plan only after Sanders pushed her to the left on those issues. Ahmed isn’t convinced she’ll make those priorities if she’s elected.
Many Sanders supporters “were not just intellectually invested in the campaign, they were emotionally invested,” said Nomiki Konst, an organizer for Sanders’ Millennial supporters. “They know so much about the Clinton campaign after working for Bernie — and now they have to support this person” they spent months criticizing.
Trotting out surrogates isn’t necessarily going to win over Sanders’ supporters, even if Sanders himself is the surrogate. Last week, he drew fewer than 200 people at a stop in Ohio, far smaller than his primary season crowds.
The Clinton campaign has also turned to younger celebrities like pop singer Katy Perry and actress Lena Dunham to try to whip up younger voters’ enthusiasm. To Konst, it comes off as generational pandering.
Her advice: “Get Hillary out there to explain how she’s going to revolutionize the Democratic Party. How she’s no longer going to accept money from lobbyists or oil companies. Young voters want to hear about change. But the (Clintons) are still campaigning like it’s the 1990s and you can slice people up into little demographic slices.”
Konst says she’ll vote for Clinton. But John Pomeroy, who held a viewing party in Oakland last month for Sanders’ announcement of his new Our Revolution organization, said Tuesday that “I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if she were the last candidate on Earth.”
To him, Clinton represents a corrupt political system. He’s not sure who he’ll vote for, and he’s not ruling out Trump.
Sanders, who was elected to the Senate from Vermont as an independent, appealed to his supporters at a recent rally not to vote for Johnson, Stein or another third-party candidate.
“This is not the time for a protest vote,” Sanders said. “I know more about third-party politics than anyone else in the Congress, OK? And if people want to run as third-party candidates, God bless them! Run for Congress. Run for governor. Run for state legislature.
“When we're talking about president of the United States, in my own personal view, this is not time for a protest vote.” Sanders said. “This is time to elect Hillary Clinton, and then work after the election to mobilize millions of people to make sure she can be the most progressive president she can be.”