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Hello, Hillary-supporting community! It's great to be with you, on the day after Hillary Clinton’s birthday! I hope you enjoy today’s edition of positive, pro-Hillary news.
Mahita Gajana reports for Time on Clinton’s 14 point polling lead:
Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over Donald Trump, polling 14 percentage points ahead nationally, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, which comes 12 days before the presidential election.
Conducted after the final presidential debate, the poll finds the Democratic nominee leads Trump among likely voters 51% to 37%, a significant lead over the Republican candidate.
According to the poll, Clinton has support of 90% of likely Democratic voters, as well as support from 15% of moderate Republicans. Of the Republicans surveyed, 79% said they would vote for Trump.
More good polling news from Aaron Blake at the WaPo: Clinton support is strengthening among millennials:
A new poll of 18-to-29-year olds from the Harvard Institute of Politics shows Clinton leading Donald Trump by 28 points among young likely voters in a four-way matchup that includes Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, 49 percent to 21 percent. That 28-point margin is notably bigger than Obama's 23-point margin in 2012, when he beat Mitt Romney 60-37 among this group.
And there's evidence that Clinton's lead could grow from there. Libertarian Gary Johnson takes 13 percent of likely voters, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein takes 6 percent — both down from where they were previously. And it's likely they'll drop further as young voters confront a choice between a protest vote and picking between Clinton and Trump (third-party candidates almost always see their vote share drop off at the end. That's happening to Johnson right now).
...it was always far-fetched that Trump would match Mitt Romney's 37 percent showing among this group. His best hope was that Johnson and/or Stein would continue to win over young voters who don't have much affection for Clinton, and that this would eat into her margin. Instead, the rallying effect to Clinton among young voters appears to be one of the big stories of the closing weeks of the 2016 election.
Here’s some qualitative analysis the round out those polls, as Time reports that Clinton’s debate performances may have helped sway younger voters:
“She has her own charm. She has her own power,” said Chris Proano, an 18-year-old student in Philadelphia who also supported Sanders during the primary. “You saw at the debate how calm she was and confident in her preparation.”
“The way she reacted to Trump was relatable,” said Jane Tomic, a 25-year-old former Sanders supporter and student in Philadelphia. “That expression of complete disbelief at the things Trump was saying made me feel much more connected to her.”
“Obama has a likability and a charisma that a lot of people think Hillary lacks,” said Cameron, a student making calls who declined to give her last name. “But the more I actually watch Hillary, the more I hear what she has to say, the more I find myself liking her.”
Wayde Goodwyn at NPR has some analysis about Texas potentially going blue for Hillary:
"He has turned off women all over America," Reed says, "and it really doesn't matter whether you are an R or a D. We're no different when it comes to that kind of thing. So, the soccer mom today, while she cares more about economic stuff, there comes a point where there's a bridge too far, and I'm seeing already in North Dallas a couple of the nasty woman T-shirts."
Khizr Khan has hit the campaign trail for HRC:
Khan’s remarks come amidst a day of campaigning for Clinton, where he is meeting with community leaders, volunteers, veterans and military families.
"This city is the most appropriate city to utter these words. I say it with complete comprehension: Donald Trump as a candidate has proven himself temperamentally unfit to be the commander of chief of this great nation," Khan said.
The public appearance comes on the heels of the release last week of an emotional 60-second campaign advertisement for Clinton featuring Khan. He shared the story of his son’s death and asked Trump, “Would my son have a place in your America?”
Clinton spent the morning of her birthday doing an interview with The Breakfast Club:
Hillary Clinton made an appearance on Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club this morning, where she spoke to the trio about gun violence, police brutality, and the effect that Donald Trump's candidacy has had on American society.
"It's something that we have to be honest about. We have to face up to systemic racism. We see it in jobs, we see it in education, we see it in housing. But let's be really clear; it's a big part of what we're facing in the criminal justice system. African American men get arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated far more often and for far longer for doing the same thing that white men do," Sec. Clinton said in response to Angela Yee's question concerning tensions between police and minority communities.
..."What Trump has done is to make it possible for people who had racist, sexist, and all kinds of prejudices and bigotry to put them right out there. Now, I'm not going to be able to wave a magic wand and change everybody's thoughts. That's something that can only happen by people working on themselves and being held to account by the rest of us, but what he's done really unleashed a lot of darkness and divisiveness."
On a more lighthearted note, she also addressed the viral meme that her debate wardrobe was inspired by Death Row records. And also described her love of dance parties:
Host Charlamagne Tha God asked Clinton if she was a good dancer, to which the presidential nominee demurred that while she “loved to dance,” she might not be quite on Beyoncé’s level.
She did, however, promise that she would be bringing more dance parties to “close the fun deficit” if elected president.
“I keep telling people I want to close deficit, and one of the deficits I want to close is the fun deficit,” Clinton said. “We gotta close the fun deficit. I’m sick of all this meanness — why don’t these people that support my opponent go out dancing? I think we need a big national dance.”
Did I mention that Stevie Wonder showed up to sing Happy Birthday? AMAZING.
Michelle Obama will be hitting the campaign trail with HRC in North Carolina. There’s a full slate of upcoming campaign events across the country with HRC and great surrogates like Tim Kaine, so check it out!
A CBS analysis of early voting in NC and Florida brings some good news for HRC:
In North Carolina, registered Democrats have a clear advantage with nearly half of the early vote (48 percent) while 28 percent of early voters are registered as Republicans, and almost a quarter (24 percent) are not affiliated with either party. Note also, in North Carolina as in many southern states, party registration may not be a good proxy for vote; some older voters may have registered as Democrats long ago when the state was more firmly Democratic, but may not vote that way anymore.
In Florida, early voters are more likely to be white than the electorate is as a whole. According to voter file estimates early voters are 72 percent white, 16 percent Hispanic, and 9 percent black. Exit polls from 2012 showed the Florida electorate to be 67 percent white, 17 percent Hispanic, 13 percent black, and the voter files show registered voters as 60 percent white, 21 percent Hispanic and 15 percent black.
In North Carolina, whites and blacks are voting early at approximately equal rates, which helps registered Democrats exceed registered Republicans, and most North Carolina African Americans are registered Democrats.
Claire Landsbaum at The Cut reports that Hillary Clinton is Holding Her Election Night Party in a Building With a Literal Glass Ceiling:
Hillary Clinton has spent her whole damn career breaking through glass ceilings, and in 2008 she called the presidency the, “highest, hardest glass ceiling” of them all. So when her staff announced she’d host her election-night party at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York, it made sense. According to Politico, her campaign sent out a round emails telling lawmakers to “save the date” for the festivities.
Another day, another amazing video from the Clinton campaign. This one features Malcolm Kenyatta:
Over at ShareBlue, Melissa McEwan analyzes the unwillingness of many media figures to acknowlege the gender bias in their reporting of Clinton:
Clinton has been subjected to a level of scrutiny so relentless and intense that it was somehow, incredibly, acceptable for the paper of record to publish a “news” article inviting “body language experts” to assess the authenticity of her gestures — and to report that they found her to be “dishonest” even in her very mannerisms.
Clinton was also subjected to being asked, over and over, why people do not like her. A demeaning question for a historic candidate who resoundingly won her primary and was leading the race for the White House, running against an opponent who has engaged in rank bigotry and boasted about sexually assaulting women. But somehow, astonishingly, it was not he who was repeatedly asked why he is not better liked.
Coverage of Clinton included panels of talking heads convened to discuss her voice, her laugh, whether she smiles enough — or too much. To admonish her for “shouting.” To talk about her hair, her clothes, her accessories. To sneer at her jokes and disdainfully disqualify any personal tidbit she shares as “pandering” and “cynical” and a desperate, pathetic attempt to connect to voters. To openly laugh at anything she does that reveals her humanity
….No man in her position, including her contemptible opponent, has been subjected to anything like the level of harassment and dehumanization masquerading as political coverage that Clinton has been.
Apparently Michael Moore is taking credit (!!) for Hillary’s success. Fannie at Fannie’s Room has a few things to say about that:
This attempted narrative that Michael Moore has uniquely "lit a fire" under people to take the US presidential election seriously erases the women, especially women of color, who comprise Hillary's base, who are and have been her most enthusiastic supporters, and who have trusted and backed her even when Moore was supporting Bernie Sanders over her. Many of us have always been taking this race seriously, viewing Trump not through the lens of abstraction or entertainment, but as a genuine threat to democracy, bodily autonomy, and human dignity.
This is not to say Moore has not had an impact, but man oh man. There is a saying women sometimes hear when people feel that we've gotten too uppity and it usually goes something like "get over yourself." I suggest that it might apply to Moore in this case, even though men are of course given far greater latitude than women to self-promote and exaggerate their influence, competence, and skills.
So, before we let him re-write history (before it's even been written I might add - are we all getting a leeeetle bit ahead of ourselves here with the Election 2016 post-mortems?), I'd like to give credit to some of the writers, public figures, and people in the TV/film industry who I think have been pretty darn impactful in terms of lighting fires under the populace (not a comprehensive list, so add to it if you will):
Shonda Rhimes, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders (...eventually, via his endorsement), Cecile Richards, Kerry Washington, Khizr Khan, Hillary Clinton's social media and Twitter team who have been on point all year, The Washington Post's Election 2016 Fact Checker, Melissa McEwan/Peter Daou and colleagues at Shareblue, the dozens of editors of major newspapers across the US who have officially endorsed Clinton, Lindy West, the Broad City gals, Ellen DeGeneres, Sarah Silverman, Kate McKinnon, and even whoever made that Shaquille O'Neal shimmy gif.
I mean how do you even end this list or sufficiently quantify it, really?
As a postscript, if you want to see some enthusiastic Clinton supporters? Peter Daou has you covered here.
Daily Kos FP writer Thandisizwe Chimurenga reported yesterday on Clinton receiving endorsements from two prominent leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement, Deray Mckesson and Brittany Packett. I wanted to highlight some of Packett’s endorsement in particular, as she describes how she warmed to Clinton. Via an interview with Melissa Harris-Perry:
Part of it was coming to see and understand Hillary's personal story more. Have you seen the Humans of New York video of her discussing her experiences as a young law student? The first time I watched the video I identified with her in a way that I hadn't before. She discussed taking her law school entrance exams and having men verbally assault her. That resonated with me. I vividly remember my experiences of sexism and racism, and I could see how her experiences had imprinted on her as well. Those moments never go away. They shape you.
...Listening to Secretary Clinton discuss her own experiences assured me she understood that reality. She wanted to help people as a lawyer, she had to clear all these additional barriers the men in the room didn't have manage. She used a phrase: she put her head down. I've literally said that exact same thing to myself so many times—just put your head down because ultimately the work is what matters.
Once I connected to her on a human level, I realized I needed to take responsibility to understand what she's accomplished. I learned more about her time at the Children's Defense Fund and about her time organizing around issues that matter to me. I found myself having deeper respect for her. And as a woman of color, I see more of myself among her staff than among the staff of other candidates. That matters.
Speaking of endorsements, the Yale Record has quite a non-endorsement:
In its 144-year history, The Yale Record has never endorsed a Democratic candidate for president. In fact, we have never endorsed any candidate for president. This is, in part, due to our strong commitment to being a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization, which mandates that we are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”
In particular, we do not endorse Hillary Clinton’s exemplary leadership during her 30 years in the public eye. We do not support her impressive commitment to serving and improving this country—a commitment to which she has dedicated her entire professional career. Because of unambiguous tax law, we do not encourage you to support the most qualified presidential candidate in modern American history, nor do we encourage all citizens to shatter the glass ceiling once and for all by electing Secretary Clinton on November 8.
Although I don’t have a Thursday Herstory today, here’s an amazing website for those who are interested in the subject: I Waited 96Years. It profiles Hillary-supporting women who were born before women in the US had the right to vote. AMAZING. Here are a couple of them:
Stellajoe Staebler, 100
Centralia, WA
“I have imagined that this would happen someday”
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Born June 1916 in Knoxville, TN
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Worked as a secretary, including civil service jobs during World War II
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Peace activist and conservationist, among volunteer roles
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Was married for 51 years
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Three daughters, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
“This vote means that the population of the U.S. has not gone completely berserk. I am grateful that at the age of 100 I’m still able to vote and that there is a highly qualified woman to vote for. I have imagined that this would happen someday. I’m thrilled that it’s in my lifetime and that the Democratic party has given us this chance.”
Mary Sue Wilson, 101
Bakersville, NC
“I remember when women got the right to vote”
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Born October 1915 in Gaffney, SC
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Moved to Mitchell County, NC at 25 to work as a store clerk
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Eloped when her mother didn’t approve of her marriage
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Still lives in the home her husband built decades ago
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Three children, six grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren
“I turned 101 years old on Monday, October 17 and Thursday my two sons and my youngest granddaughter took me to early voting. I remember when women got the right to vote, and this week I got to vote for a woman for president. I think I'll get to see a woman president in my lifetime—and I think that woman will be Hillary Clinton. My first time voting was when I turned 21 in 1936. I voted for FDR. I was born a Democrat and I'll die a Democrat.”
Please read them all if you are so inclined. They are inspiring.
Michaela Angela Davis from Filmmakers for Hillary on Vimeo has a simple message: It’s Time for a Bad*ss Woman in the White House:
Finally, because I like to end with something fun, here is James Franco’s pro-Hillary spot, in which she becomes “The Most Interesting Woman in the World”:
PS Thanks to everyone who was supportive about my wedding this past weekend! Accomplishment unlocked: get hitched. :)
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States. If you would like to support @Scan and his work there, visit GoFundMe and make a donation.
Header image by Barbara Kinney for Hillary For America. Used under Creative Common license.