As 2016 presidential candidates flocked to spend Independence Day in early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton found herself defending her record on policy and the size of crowds at her events.

“I take a backseat to no one when you look at my record in standing up and fighting for progressive values,” Clinton told an audience in Hanover, New Hampshire, on Friday.

On Saturday, Independence Day itself, she spoke extensively about subjects including last week’s historic supreme court ruling on same-sex marriage, saying: “The language Justice Kennedy uses about the bonds between people is just almost mystical. It’s beautiful. So we have to do everything we can to end discrimination in the LGBT community.”

Clinton has come under greater-than-expected pressure from the independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist running a determinedly grassroots-focused campaign who nonetheless attracted nearly 10,000 people to a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday. On Friday night, a Sanders event in Council Buffs, Iowa, was standing-room only.

On Friday, while visiting the Dairy Twirl ice cream shop in Lebanon, Clinton was asked why she was not drawing such big crowds.

“Well, we each run our own campaigns and I always knew this was gonna be competitive,” she said. “And I want to have a great debate in the primary and caucuses around the country and that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Clinton also said her defeat by Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary had taught her the importance of organizing every single day.

“That’s why I’m doing a lot of meetings and discussions about specific issues,” she said, “because I want to hear from people and I also want to connect them to the campaign.

“And I feel like it’s really working. It is building a campaign here in New Hampshire, using the grassroots, and coming up from that, because at the end of the day, I think that wins elections and wins caucuses.”

On the morning of 4 July, the former senator and secretary of state attended a grassroots organizing event in Glen.

Asked about the Obama administration’s involvement in ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, she said: “I’m hoping it’s a strong, verifiable deal that will put the lid on Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Even if we are successful, however, Iran’s aggressiveness will not end.”

In an hour-long event, Clinton also discussed her ideas on college debt, the same-sex marriage ruling and the future makeup of the court.

College graduates and those with graduate degrees should get help to refinance their debt and be allowed to pay back their loans as a percentage of their incomes, she said, adding of her early life with her husband, former President Bill Clinton: “We were paying back loans while he was governor of Arkansas.”

Clinton encouraged people to read the supreme court’s decision extending same-sex marriage rights nationwide, saying “it’s not only a constitutionally based decision, which it should be, but there is a current underpinning it, which is [that] we need to respect each other, and we need to allow people to live and love and we need to support that”.

Asked about the future of the court, Clinton said it was possible the next president could have three to four appointments. If elected, she said she would appoint justices who would “bring an open mind and an open heart”.

In the afternoon, Clinton was set to march in the Gorham Fourth of July parade. Former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee, another candidate for the Democratic nomination, was also campaigning in the state, planning to visit Merrimack and Amherst.

Sanders and the former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley were both in Iowa. Sanders was due to march in parades in Creston and Waukee.

Sanders has been gaining on Clinton. On Thursday, a Quinnipiac University poll found Clinton at 52% in Iowa while Sanders had climbed to 33%. On 7 May, Clinton led the same poll by 60% to 15%. The latest CNN poll shows Clinton only eight points ahead of Sanders in New Hampshire, although national surveys remain more clearly in Clinton’s favor.

Always fun to run into classmates @phillipsacademy on the campaign trail -L Happy Fourth of July #chafee2016 pic.twitter.com/OfU3PaoVuo — Lincoln Chafee (@LincolnChafee) July 4, 2015

Republican presidential candidates also opted to celebrate Independence Day in the early voting states.

After a “sleepover” at 2012 candidate Mitt Romney’s vacation home in New Hampshire, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Florida senator Marco Rubio were to march in Wolfeboro’s parade.

The former Texas governor Rick Perry, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham joined Chafee for a parade in Amherst.



Bush and Chafee have old school ties in common. They duly met up, the Democratic candidate using Twitter to say: “Always fun to run into classmates @phillipsacademy on the campaign trail.”

Bush, who was marching with his son George P Bush, the recently elected Texas land commissioner, was chided by a voter who told him he was holding up the parade.

“There’s nothing behind us – other than Hillary,” Bush said. A team of Clinton supporters were marching right behind a group backing the former Florida governor, their blue signs in sharp contrast with his red.