Clinton
shrugs off slumping poll numbers, looks to debate
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[September 15, 2015]
By John Whitesides
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (Reuters) - Presidential
contender Hillary Clinton shrugged off her slumping poll numbers on
Monday and said the upcoming Democratic debates would give her a chance
to draw a contrast with liberal Senator Bernie Sanders and other rivals
as she makes her White House pitch directly to voters.
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“You’re supposed to have an election; you’re supposed to have a
contest,” Clinton told reporters after a campaign event in Iowa, the
state that will kick off the Democratic presidential nominating
contest early next year.
“When we start the debate, we will start to draw contrasts not only
as I do all the time with Republicans but where appropriate with my
Democratic competitors,” she said.
Clinton, once the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination
for the 2016 presidential election, has seen her cushion dwindle in
polls both nationally and in early-voting states such as Iowa and
New Hampshire amid questions about her use of a private email server
for her work as secretary of state.
In new Iowa polls, she has fallen into a dead heat or trails
Sanders, who also has closed the gap nationally. A Reuters/Ipsos
national poll on Friday showed Clinton’s one-time 30-point lead
among Democrats has dipped to eight percentage points.
The Vermont senator has galvanized the party's left-leaning
activists and taken advantage of what other polls show are Clinton's
declining ratings on honesty and trustworthiness fueled by the email
controversy.
Clinton said she was still confident about her prospects. “I’m not
one of those who ever thought this was going to be a straight shot,”
she told reporters. “I’ve been in and around enough campaigns to
know there’s an ebb and flow. Polls go up and down; people’s
decision-making changes over time.”
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Earlier, she told the crowd at Northern Iowa University in Cedar
Falls that it was great she was having a “vigorous” discussion of
ideas with Sanders and her other rivals and said the debates would
give them a chance to “talk about where we agree and disagree.”
The first Democratic debate is scheduled for Las Vegas, Nevada, on
Oct. 13, with one more each month before the Iowa contest on Feb. 1.
"In the Democratic primaries and caucuses, you have to try to earn
every single person’s support. That’s what I intend to do,” Clinton
said.
(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker in Washington; editing by
Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)
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