‘A DEFINING MOMENT’
Clinton fans praise her historic goal, qualifications
USA TODAY NETWORK
Many supporters of the candidate who’ll be America’s first female presidential nominee don’t care that she is a woman any more than they care that her opponent is a man.
They’re with her because they find Hillary Clinton so qualified and Donald Trump so ... terrifying.
“I’m excited — I want Hillary to get elected. But kind of scared, too,” says Jennifer Gibbens, 36, a Springfield, Missouri, social worker. She’s afraid Trump would “take us back to the Dark Ages.”
But Clinton Nation is more than a set of hopes and fears. The USA TODAY NETWORK interviewed scores of Clinton supporters, some in every state, for a more nuanced understanding of its denizens and their motives.
They’re excited by Clinton’s historic quest — what Michael Bouchard, 38, an Atlanta real estate agent, called “a defining moment . ... Almost a hundred years after women got the right to vote.”
She couldn’t be more qualified, said Jeanne Cumby, 54, of Asheville, North Carolina, “unless she’d been to the moon.”
To sing her praises, supporters recite her resume — Yale Law School, children’s advocate, first lady, U.S. senator, 2008 presidential candidate, secretary of state. “Hillary has been there, done that, and wrote the book on a lot of things,” said the Rev. Dennis Ross Sr., 56, a Memphis pastor.
Many supporters, especially women, talked about how Clinton has been tested — “demon-
ized throughout her career,” in the words of Frances Williams, a Las Cruces, New Mexico, employment mediator. “If she can stand up to what she has stood up to, the Benghazi hearings and the email stuff, she can stand up to anybody, because she’s proven she has the balls to do it.”
It helps explain why Clinton leads Trump among women by 24 percentage points in a recent Pew poll — the widest gender gap on record.
‘GREAT AS IT IS’
Clinton Nation is a long way from Trump Nation, which the USA TODAY NETWORK profiled last week.
It does not share Trump Nation’s nostalgia for America as it was. Annette Jacobs, 41, of Mesa, Arizona, likes Clinton because she’ll “make sure that America stays the way it is.”
About three-quarters of Trump supporters believe life in America has gotten worse, compared with a fifth of Clinton voters, according a Pew survey.
Many Trump voters have gotten to know him only over the past year. Many of Clinton’s feel they’ve known her all along.
Listen to Joy Nembhard, 70, a Mount Vernon, New York, real estate broker and a native of Jamaica: “When I first came to the United States, I had the pleasure of getting my citizenship. That was my first opportunity to vote for Bill Clinton and also to work on his campaign, which gave me the opportunity to get an invitation to the inauguration. Since then, I have watched Mrs. Clinton as a first lady and admired her. Then to see her come to New York to live in Chappaqua, which is my own town, and then be a senator. So I have grown with her.”
Some in Clinton Nation struggle economically, no matter their class.
Kara Gerick, 37, is a Jackson, New Jersey, public school teacher and mother: “I am a part of the poor middle class. I make what should be considered a decent salary. Yet I have to work three jobs, along with my husband working his public school teaching job, just to make ends meet. We don’t live lavishly. But we still somehow, every month, have nothing left for savings. I don’t think we’re unique. I think that’s really everybody in the middle class now. I don’t think the middle class is the middle class anymore.”
Mishal Buchannan is a 20year student and retail worker who lives in Auburndale, Florida: “I hope she takes a page out of Bernie Sanders’ book. I’ve been part of the lower class my whole life, and my family has. The system has been rigged to keep poor people poor.”
A CRUCIAL CHOICE
In every presidential campaign since 2004, majorities of voters have said “it really matters” who wins. But in a Pew survey last month, 74 percent expressed this view, up 11 percentage points from the same point in the 2008 and 2012 campaigns.
A big reason the election really matters to Clinton Nation is Trump.
“I was a New York police officer, and there’s not too many things that frighten me,” said Rich Langan, 67, Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin. “But one thing that does frighten me is Donald Trump.”
Half of Clinton supporters view their choice more as a vote against Trump than one for their candidate, according to Pew. That’s a higher “against” share for a Democratic candidate’s supporters than in any of the last four elections.
So even though they’ll be voting to make history, many Clinton voters will do so holding their noses.
“I’m not saying, “Woo-hoo, Hillary!” said Denise Jones, 51, a waitress from West Manchester Township, Pennsylvania. “It’s just she’s the lesser of the evil choices.”