Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are on a three-day, 600-mile bus tour through right-leaning Rust Belt counties, with at least a partial goal of winning over some Republicans who are put off by Donald Trump.
The trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio, which started Friday, looks to take advantage of a problem within the Republican Party: That around 20% of Republicans have an unfavorable view of their newly-minted nominee.
But the trip also hints at a problem within Clinton’s base, as well: White, working class voters, especially those hurt by globalization and manufacturing plants are drawn to Trump’s message of economic security and cracking down on immigration.
Clinton’s top aides see both Pennsylvania and Ohio as key states for Trump, where he must outperform how Mitt Romney did in 2012. But Democrats are bullish that Trump could do just that, especially if longtime Democratic voters overlook Trump’s braggadocios demeanor and vote for him in November.
By reaching out to Republicans — as the campaign did at the Democratic National Convention this week and will do in the coming days — Clinton’s team are also looking to shore up support with Democrats.
To execute this strategy, Clinton and her top aides are looking to press an argument that opposing Trump is not just the right thing to do, but the patriotic decision, something they feel will resonate with longtime Republicans who are disenchanted with Trump.
The campaign has turned to Leslie Dach, a former Wal-Mart executive and aide to former President Bill Clinton, to convince Republicans — particularly those in business — to back Clinton.
“I am not satisfied with the status quo. I am not telling you everything is peachy keen,” Clinton said at an event on Friday in Philadelphia. “I am telling you we have made progress but we have work to do.”
Clinton, echoing a case she will make throughout the weekend, added, Trump “doesn’t make a thing in America except bankruptcies.”
The former secretary of state winning Republicans is an uphill climb: No Democrat is more polarizing than Clinton — she was a unifying figure for Republicans at last week’s GOP convention in Cleveland. A CNN poll released earlier this month found that 9% of registered voters had a favorable view of Clinton.
But it’s this number that has Clinton’s strategist seeing inroads with Republicans: 17% of Republican registered voters in CNN’s latest poll had an unfavorable view of Donald Trump and 23% of registered voters who identify as conservative said the same.
Clinton will sit down for a rare interview with Fox News Sunday this weekend, hoping to push this message with the cable channels Republican viewership.
The timing of the interview is not insignificant. Imbued in Clinton’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention were lines meant to reach out to Republicans.
“He’s taken the Republican Party a long way from ‘Morning in America’ to ‘Midnight in America,'” Clinton said of Trump Thursday, in a speech where she promised to be a “president for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.”
And the candidate wants to push that message with the interview.
Clinton, looking at moderate Republicans who have seemingly resigned themselves to supporting Trump, opened a new line of attack in her speech by simply noting that Trump can’t — or won’t — change.
“Here’s the sad truth: There is no other Donald Trump,” Clinton said. “This is it.”
The line was not a one-off olive branch to Republicans, either.
Earlier in the night, Doug Elmets, a former aide to Ronald Reagan, tried to cut into comparisons made between Trump and the Republican icon and former president.
“I knew Ronald Reagan, I worked for Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, you are no Ronald Reagan,” Elmets said to applause.
On Thursday, Michael Bloomberg, the former Republican mayor of New York, spoke to the Democratic audience and received a positive reaction.
“Trump says he wants to run the country like he runs his business? God help us,” Bloomberg said. “I’m a New Yorker and I know a con when I see one.”
Republicans are not only skeptical that Clinton’s strategy won’t work, but they argue it could backfire if it compels liberal Democrats to vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party’s nominee for president, or Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate.
“Given the mass walk-outs, protests, and the fact she was booed 18 times at her acceptance speech, it would seem Hillary Clinton ought to be focusing on locking down her base,” Michael Short, spokesman for the Republican National Convention said.
But Clinton aides are confident that the same reason Republicans are disaffected — Trump atop the ticket — will be the same reason that most liberal Democrats will overlook issues they have with Clinton and not vote for a third party option.
There’s some polling to give them comfort. A Pew Research Center poll from earlier this month found that 90% of Sanders supporters favor Clinton over Trump and are likely to pick the former Secretary of State.