Hillary Clinton’s communications director Jen Palmieri did her best to spin a week filled with sliding poll numbers and very little grassroots support. On Medium, she mocked reporters for focusing on the facts rather than take Clinton’s positive spin wholesale.
Here’s a taste of what Clinton and her team had to contend with this week:
A new poll shows Clinton’s support among Democrats is eroding
An Associated Press-GfK poll released this week found her standing falling among Democrats, with about 70 percent of Democrats giving Clinton positive marks, an 11-point drop from an April survey. Nearly a quarter of Democrats now say they see Clinton in an unfavorable light.
“I don’t like seeing that, obviously,” Clinton said of the poll, speaking to reporters on Thursday. “But I think people know that I will fight for them. I’ll fight for their jobs, I’ll fight for their families, I’ll fight on behalf of better education and health care.”
She added: “I’m very pleased with the support I have.”
Reviews of her first national TV interview included words like “terrible” and “not on her game”
Clinton appeared on CNN and spoke with Brianna Keilar last week. During this week’s Sunday shows, her performance got panned as “terrible.” John King noted at least one of her answers was “just simply not true.”
Clinton upset some of her most important supporters – labor leaders
Clinton came out in opposition to a $15 national minimum wage just yesterday. That runs counter to her position from last month, when she told “Fight For $15” advocates that she supported their efforts.
Additionally, it was reported other labor leaders are “seething” at the American Federation of Teachers for endorsing Clinton before their agreed-upon July 31 waiting period. During that time, labor leaders were planning to interview other Democratic presidential candidates.
Clinton has a real problem with climate change advocates, too.
A protest broke out at Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire town hall (it was supposed to be about profit sharing, but nobody asked her about that). Climate change advocates are unhappy with Clinton’s position on extracting fossil fuels from public lands. Clinton was asked if her “refusal to take leadership on climate change” is “due to the fact that that you have contributions from the fossil fuel industry in your campaign?”
The fairytale about her thrifty campaign came to an end this week.
Clinton tried to assure reporters, donors, and voters that this campaign would be different—she wouldn’t spend so much money on a failed presidential bid. But in less than 3 months, Clinton spent $18.7 million and had a burn rate of nearly 40%. She spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private jets and polling. And she received donations from the “criminal” banks she attacked just days earlier.
Her grassroots support is “largely spin”
Suggestions by Hillary Clinton and other presidential candidates that their campaigns are being powered by massive grassroots fundraising engines were largely spin for most of the 2016 prospects, a POLITICO analysis of reports filed this week shows.
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Clinton’s fundraising juggernaut of a campaign for the Democratic nomination, which repeatedly pledged to build “a grassroots-driven organization,” revealed in its FEC report that 67 percent of its field-leading $47 million in primary-election cash came from donors contributing $2,700 or more. Only 18 percent came from donations of $200 or less.