Clinton warns young voters against playing 'into Trump's hands'

With polls tightening nationwide, Hillary Clinton on Monday ramped up her efforts to win over skeptical young voters, while also warning them that Donald Trump represents a dire threat to their futures.

“This is going to be close,” Clinton said, before ticking off the URLs and phone numbers her campaign is using to organize this voting bloc. “We need everyone off the sidelines. Not voting is not an option; it just plays into Trump’s hands.”


Embracing her inner policy wonk, Clinton asked young voters to give her candidacy a chance. “I spend a lot of time on the details of policy, like the precise interest rate on your student loan — right down to the decimal,” she said during a rally at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Even with a less crowded field and facing an opponent like Trump, Clinton and her team admitted she has a problem reaching this peg of the so-called Obama coalition, the wide range of demographic groups that powered the nation’s first African-American president to the White House.

“The millennial generation is a key voting bloc in this election, and it is clear that the campaign must do more to earn their vote,” Clinton’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, said in a statement earlier on Monday.

While Clinton struggled mightily among younger voters in her primary contest against Bernie Sanders, operatives on both sides of the aisle expected her to have an easier time against Trump — largely because of Democrats’ traditional advantage over Republicans among the younger set.

But a spate of recent polls have shown that Clinton’s share of young voters is smaller than many expected, largely because of the relatively high support flowing to Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, each of whom has emerged as an option for young voters disillusioned by the two-party system and its candidates.

Increasingly nervous that her lead is slipping away partly because of her weak standing with young voters, Clinton’s team has been ratcheting up its millennial outreach effort in recent weeks beyond Monday’s speech — her first address explicitly dedicated to reaching those voters. Her campus organizing teams — partly led by a former Sanders staffer — have been increasing their efforts as students return to college, and her policy team put out an online “college calculator” service that helps students plan out their education costs and demonstrates savings under Clinton’s college plan.

In addition to an op-ed in Mic released on Monday morning, the Brooklyn-based campaign has also started relying heavily on popular surrogates to excite younger Americans — first and foremost Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, each of whose campaign footprint is growing in the fall. Both Sanders and Warren barnstormed Ohio for Clinton this past weekend, aiming to gin up excitement among millennials.

Like President Barack Obama, who still enjoys high popularity in the age group, Clinton said young people give her hope during what has become an increasingly bitter campaign. More than just inspiration, though, Clinton promised to include young people on the journey ahead.

“I need you as partners not just for winning this election, but the fights ahead of us over the next eight years,” she said. “That’s why, if I’m in the White House, young people will always have a seat at any table where a decision is being made.”

