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Clinton Seeks White, Male Voters But May Not Need Them

Erik Rankin

Democrats, led by Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are continuing to try to appeal to a segment of voters most think may vote for GOP nominee Donald Trump.  Illinois State University Politics and Government professor Erik Rankin and ISU students attended the convention in Philadelphia this week. 

During Sound Ideas, he told GLT's Mike McCurdy Clinton reached out white, male voters. But he says her message resonates with many groups. 

"She really looked at the bigger picture and decided to tap into an important thing. She's looking at Latinos, she's looking at African Americans, she's looking at Millennials. She's looking at these groups that are also frustrated," said Rankin. "I teach students who are frustrated with an economy they hear is doing so much better but yet so many of them are struggling  to find jobs."

Credit Erik Rankin
The Illinois Delegation sign at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Rankin said African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected by joblessness and wage stagnation compared to white people.  However, he pointed out that Clinton's first campaign stops following the convention are directly aimed the so-called disaffected white voters gravitating toward Trump. There are post-convention rallies in manufacturing, rust-belt communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  He said he thinks she knows her weaknesses. The question is "does she need to waste her time" with trying to appeal to these kinds of voters, as Rankin put it. 

"I  think she'll peel off a few of them. This convention helped with that. We saw 4 star generals speaking, we saw Michael Bloomberg speaking, we saw other republicans speaking," said Rankin."She has some work to do ahead of her but I think she can reach those. And I think her husband is going to be an excellent surrogate to get dispatched out  to those locations as well." 

Rankin says there are 102 days until the election and approximately 50 days until the first debate, time surrogates such as the current sitting President and Vice President will be able to campaign for more support.