Top Hillary Clinton backers want to know what percentage of Donald Trump's supporters will he concede are deplorable — 20 percent? 10? How about just David Duke?

Forget Clinton’s apology for casting half of her opponent’s supporters into a “basket of deplorables.” Now her team is looking to own this.


Some of the Democrat’s most vocal supporters say Trump’s decision to repeatedly attack her for this off-the-cuff (although not new) remark has given her supporters and surrogates opportunities to rebut with examples of his racially charged rhetoric and rallies, helping, they hope, to lock down the college-educated women who have been wavering on Clinton but remain uncomfortable with what Trump might represent.

And by Election Day, Clinton’s close allies are arguing that this “deplorables” line will be worn by the candidate herself as badge of honor despite the initial wave of Beltway wisdom that condemned it as a mistake.

“One result of this conversation is that the country is actually debating how many of Donald Trump’s supporters are anti-Semitic, racist, sexist,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and one of the top outside supporters connected to the former secretary of state. “In a world where we wish that number was zero, this debate shines a light on the voice that Donald Trump has given to some attitudes that deeply trouble Americans in this election cycle.”

“I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I think it’s working out just fine,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “If you’re litigating what percentage of Donald Trump’s voters are deplorable and what behavior among Donald Trump’s supporters is deplorable, then you’re on Hillary Clinton’s turf.”

Since issuing the apology Saturday, Clinton aides have slowly gone on offense on the deplorables line, encouraging talk about how the response might turn to their advantage. Monday, the campaign released a Web ad picking up on the controversy filled with clips of Trump speaking negatively about people — "What's Donald Trump's opinion of Americans?" reads the text on screen.

“This is a debate that we are happy to have. And if they want to continue to have this debate, that’s a good debate for us,” said a Clinton campaign official Wednesday evening.

Trump and many of his high-profile supporters have continued pushing forward, sensing an opportunity to deny Clinton any more Republican defectors and center-right voters than she’s already peeled away.

Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday starting selling “I’m a Hillary Deplorable” T-shirts. Wednesday, his campaign blasted out a New York Times editorial attacking Clinton for the comment. “Dear Fellow Members of the Basket of Deplorables,” Kansas GOP Chairman Kelly Arnold started an email to his party Wednesday morning.

“She was flaming what she sees as flyover country,” said former Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston, now a close adviser to Trump.

Clinton’s comments were a dog whistle into a megaphone, he said, and it’s lighting up Trump’s base. “What they're doing is trying to say to fellow liberals we're not wrong, see, some people are deplorable,” Kingston said. “Maybe not half, but a certain percentage.”

Clinton allies argue that people who think Clinton is talking about them when she calls people racist are going to vote for Trump no matter what. The Democrat’s advisers and allies are focused on the few remaining undecided voters whom the Trump campaign believes will be offended on their behalf, turned off by Clinton seeming to denigrate or write off so many people.

“The Trump people have been completely misplaying this. Every day that they go out and talk about this, they are drawing attention and inviting a conversation about, ‘Well which of your supporters are racist, and why are you attracting them?’” said Mo Elleithee, a spokesman for Clinton’s 2008 campaign and now the executive director of Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.

Trump’s campaign clearly disagrees. Wednesday, a fundraising email went out in the candidate’s name that asked supporters “to stick up for the tens of millions of Americans Hillary slandered as ‘deplorable’ and un-American.”

A town hall attendees sport 'Deplorables' shirts to a Newt Gingrich event at Kennesaw State University on Sept. 12. | AP Photo

“This is a disrespect for people who think the country’s on the wrong track, who haven’t done well financially, and they believe that their government is not listening to them, that things aren’t going well and can be better, and nobody in Washington wants to hear it,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Trump’s earliest and most prominent backer in Washington.

Asked whether he would agree that any percentage of Trump’s supporters count as deplorable, Sessions chuckled.

“I don’t see any need to say that,” he said.

But behind closed doors this week, the issue has been bubbling among Republicans, many of whom brought it up directly to GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence during his visit to the Hill Tuesday. The Indiana governor rebuffed their attempts to get him to openly denounce one-time Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke; they also refused Pence's call to join him in pouncing on the “deplorables” line with Capitol Hill reporters.

Schatz, who is a liberal Democrat from a solid blue state, said he’s hearing the anxieties from across the aisle.

“Part of the challenge for moderate Republicans is, it is a question of their own view of themselves. They may be loyal Republicans but they just can’t stomach having common cause with people who have no place in American society in 2016,” Schatz said. “If you’re a patriotic Republican, this forces the issue for you: Do you associate with these people or not?”

“There’s a lot of good-hearted people who support Trump and they have the right to do that, but there are racists too,” said Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). “I would imagine that there are even people who support Trump who say, ‘Why can’t you denounce David Duke?’”

Ryan also speculated that Clinton might have been hoping people would pick up the comment — after all, it wasn’t a one-off line from that Friday night fundraiser, but one she’d been saying at multiple fundraisers and even in a television interview earlier in the week with an Israeli television station. “Basket of deplorables” was there each time — only the “half,” which was the piece she apologized for, was unique to Friday.

“Trump's this tough guy, Mr. Tough Guy banging his chest, but he won't call David Duke deplorable? You're not a tough guy, not at all,” Ryan said.

Sessions said he’s unconvinced. Polls show Clinton’s lead slipping, he said, and any defense of this comment is just desperate spin. Go ahead and try to keep talking about this through November, Sessions told Clinton supporters, because Trump and his team will too.

“I can understand they’re trying to turn it around,” Sessions said. “But it’s not going to turn around.”