Oh god that was great haha
Presidential Election: Clinton Tries to Run Up a Lead as Trump Seeks a Breakthrough"Hillary Clinton hopes to take advantage on Sunday of her last, best chance to draw supporters to the polls before Election Day, as early voting winds down and a spike in Latino turnout across the country appears to be giving her an edge in battleground states.
Early voting has already ended in Nevada and Arizona, but Democrats can still try to run up a lead on Sunday in crucial parts of Florida — the large, diverse swing state that Senator Tim Kaine called “checkmate” for the Clinton campaign on Saturday.
For Donald J. Trump, Sunday is about seeking a path to the presidency not blocked by Latino, black and Asian voters. He will head to the Upper Midwest, into long-shot states like Minnesota that have not voted Republican for president in a generation, where he hopes to break through with sharp attacks on foreign trade. The trip comes a day after Mr. Trump was rushed offstage by members of his Secret Service detail during a rally on Saturday night in Reno, Nev.
Here are some of the things we will be watching Sunday:
Clinton is not likely to be back in Florida before Election Day, but she is sending in the big guns.
Early voting is coming to a close in Florida, the nation’s largest swing state, and Mrs. Clinton is not expected to return there before Election Day. But on the campaign’s last weekend, she is sending her most prized surrogate, President Obama, to rev up turnout in the Orlando area.
Mr. Obama has been an indispensable force in getting out the vote, and the site for his visit is no accident. Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist tracking early turnout in Florida, detailed a distinct bump in Democratic voting around Jacksonville after Mr. Obama’s visit there on Thursday. And while Democrats have enjoyed a big boost from Latino voting in the Orlando area, they see room to grow, especially among black voters.
The hope for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is that with most of Florida already having voted, she will have built a meaningful lead before Election Day. But Mr. Trump is still going all out in the state, campaigning in Tampa on Saturday and planning a visit to Sarasota on Monday.
Trump and Pence are hoping for a Minnesota miracle.
After ignoring Minnesota, a solidly blue state, throughout the general election campaign, Mr. Trump is headed there on Sunday in a bid to change the electoral map. His campaign has spun it as a bold move to exploit his rising fortunes in the race. The reality is harsher: Mr. Trump is trying to put Minnesota in play because he is running out of ways to assemble 270 electoral votes, and he may need a long-shot state to break his way.
Democrats — and more than a few Republicans — have scoffed at the move. But Mrs. Clinton has left little to chance in the final days of the race, and has taken steps to shore up her position in another seemingly safe state, Michigan, where Mr. Trump has decided to press his luck.
It will be the height of political caution if the Clinton campaign redirects resources to Minnesota, a state so liberal-leaning that it elected Democrats to high-level office in the Republican wave years of 2010 and 2014.
In the final push, Clinton looks to Khan and LeBron.
Mrs. Clinton has campaigned with a powerhouse lineup of supporters over the past week, and two people joining her on Sunday are among the most potent. In Ohio, she will appear alongside LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers star and a revered figure in the biggest swing state leaning toward Mr. Trump.
Mr. James does not routinely intervene in politics, so his support for Mrs. Clinton — and the tone and language of his remarks — could break though in a way that most celebrity endorsements do not.
In New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton will be joined by an electrifying figure of a different kind: Khizr Khan, whose August clash with Mr. Trump proved disastrous for the Republican nominee. The Clinton campaign has put Mr. Khan in television ads as a spokesman for inclusion and religious tolerance, and he has also proved almost uniquely capable of flummoxing Mr. Trump. Mr. Khan’s reappearance comes as Mr. Trump is struggling to stay on message.
Trump looks to stay on that message as he makes a campaign blitz to five states on Sunday.
Mr. Trump’s campaign aides have pushed him to stick to a rigid script and avoid undermining himself with loose talk as he closes out the race. He has been cooperative, up to a point. On Saturday, Mr. Trump repeatedly veered far from his prepared remarks, offering free-form thoughts on the news media, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq. He also repeated a false story that Mr. Obama had screamed at a pro-Trump protester.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump’s discipline may be strained further as he campaigns at a frenzied pace, largely in states that he is likely to lose. He is due to visit five states, four of which — Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia — appear to be leaning toward Mrs. Clinton.
It adds up to a difficult test of focus for a candidate not known for his self-control. A tired candidate is usually one more likely to slip up, and a frustrated candidate doubly so.
Republicans and Democrats are starting to look past Election Day.
Though Democrats are not taking victory for granted — and Republicans aren’t giving up — the first traces of postelection spin are starting to appear. There are early rumblings of an argument from backers of Mr. Trump, who do not want to see his agenda repudiated, that he has been the party’s strongest candidate in years.
“Whatever happens, Trump will have more electoral votes than Romney and more excitement at every event,” Laura Ingraham, the influential conservative radio host, tweeted on Saturday.
It is far from certain that Mr. Trump will exceed Mitt Romney’s 2012 performance, but the better he fares, even in defeat, the harder it will be for the Republican establishment to expunge his influence from the party.
Democrats, growing confident again that Mrs. Clinton will prevail, have begun to speak quietly of the spiking Latino turnout as a kind of mandate to enact an immigration overhaul in 2017. Should Mrs. Clinton prevail on the strength of states like Nevada, Colorado and Florida, her allies can be expected to make this argument forcefully after Nov. 8."
www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/us/politics/presidential-election.html
