DETROIT — She’s winning here in the polls, but on the eve of Tuesday’s Michigan Democratic primary Hillary Clinton still had a few things to worry about.

With just hours before voting begins, the party’s front-runner is facing increasing fire from Bernie Sanders over her past support for international trade deals. And, after a day of Sanders’ barbs aimed at her from across the state, Clinton stepped into an arena she hasn’t entered since her rocky pre-campaign book tour in the summer of 2014: Fox News.


Clinton was added to Monday’s Democratic town hall on Friday only after the network — which, known for a conservative tilt, has not been Sanders’ preferred venue either — said it would go ahead and host the event featuring the Vermont senator alone. But after resolving what her campaign said was a scheduling conflict, the former secretary of state is on board — and Democrats widely expected her to face questions about issues that have not necessarily animated her primary contest against Sanders, but which could pop up frequently in a general election fight against a Republican candidate.

After largely avoiding Fox News for the past eight years, Clinton indeed faced questions about her email arrangement at the State Department, her handling of Libya during her tenure at State, and her policies on abortion. The candidate batted back the queries, repeating her standard lines on the email question while telling host Bret Baier the current situation in Libya is “deeply regrettable,” but that the country would look like Syria without American intervention.

The network, which has been widely praised for its handling of Republican debates, didn’t announce the topics of discussion in advance, and it largely stayed away from issues that have defined the Democratic campaign — such as the multinational trade deals that have come up repeatedly here in Michigan — except for when Baier asked Sanders to respond to Clinton’s debate-night claim that he opposed the auto bailout.

“Of course I voted in the one Senate vote where I had an opportunity to support the auto industry,” Sanders said. “What I did not vote for was the bailout of Wall Street, and Secretary Clinton did vote for that."

Speaking to a likely conservative-leaning audience, Clinton and Sanders also faced questions about working with Congress and Republicans. Asked who their favorite GOP lawmakers are, Sanders demurred (“If I tell you, it would be a disservice to that person”), and Clinton sounded a similar note while singling out Sens. Susan Collins and John McCain.

And Sanders declined to hit Clinton for her trouble convincing Americans of her trustworthiness, instead pivoting Baier’s question to his own successes among the people who know him best. “I am very proud that I received 86 percent of the vote in” Vermont, he said.

Still, the event featured unpredictable terrain for Clinton — who’s likely to win Mississippi’s Tuesday primary, and who has held a double-digit lead over Sanders in Michigan despite his all-out effort to close the gap in recent weeks.

The cable network’s regular lineup includes a handful of hosts who have hardly been friendly to her, including Sean Hannity, who has repeatedly pledged to do everything he can to stop her from becoming president.

Clinton has had a complicated history with the network in recent years. When she ran for president in 2008, the network twice tried to host a Democratic primary debate, only to have the candidates decline to participate. Even so, she appeared on Fox several times while campaigning, at one point even sitting for an interview with stalwart conservative host Bill O’Reilly.

Since then, Clinton has rarely appeared in person on the network, but her presence has loomed large as it aggressively covered her email controversy and the attacks in Benghazi — with host Andrea Tantaros going so far as to say that anyone who sees the movie “13 Hours” and goes on to vote for Clinton is a criminal.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is questioned by Fox News host Brett Baer at a Democratic Town Hall in Detroit, on March 7. | Getty

During the Super Bowl in February 2014, Clinton even poked fun at her relationship with the network, tweeting, “It’s so much more fun to watch Fox when it’s someone else being blitzed & sacked!"

Her joint interview with Baier and host Greta Van Susteren later that year was her last appearance on the network before Monday's, as "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace implored her on his show to join him for an interview — even last month airing photos of two of her top communications aides to spur them into answering his emails and calls. (Sanders, a frequent presence on the Sunday shows and cable news, is no Fox regular but he did sit for an interview with Wallace in February.)

Nonetheless, it wasn’t just Baier who proved tricky for Clinton: Sanders sought to put her on defense after she appeared to catch him off guard during Sunday’s debate in Flint by suggesting he opposed the auto bailout. Her campaign then turned the clip into a radio ad airing in Michigan in the final hours before voting, and it released a web video comparing Sanders to 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who was hit hard in Michigan and Ohio over his own opposition to the bailout. Sanders shot back with a radio ad of his own Monday night — just hours before polls opened — accusing Clinton of “distort[ing] the truth."

Campaigning across the state on Monday, Sanders fought back aggressively, noting that the vote in question was against the bank bailout — which included money for the auto companies — rather than the separate auto-focused legislation.

Clinton “went out of her way to mischaracterize” the situation, Sanders told a crowd of Michiganders in Kalamazoo.

“There was one vote in the United States Senate to support the automobile industry and, of course, I voted for it. To say otherwise is simply not telling the truth,” he said. “I understand that Secretary Clinton wants to deflect attention away from her record supporting trade agreements like NAFTA and [permanent] normal trade relations with China, but she shouldn’t do that by mischaracterizing my record."

That escalation came as the senator has also been railing against her past backing of trade deals that he says have led to the devastation of Michigan’s economy — a topic that has been central to his Michigan pitch, but not one that surfaced during the town hall.

