EXETER, N.H. — Hillary Clinton unveiled a wide-ranging and meticulously planned $350 billion higher education proposal Monday morning at an energetic, jam-packed event at an early-state high school. Later in the day, she spoke to voters on a picturesque ski slope in Manchester, where the soft optics of hay bales under a nearly cloudless sky were an advance team’s dream.

Yet it was easy to miss amid the day’s wall-to-wall Donald Trump media coverage and news that the 185,000-member National Nurses United union endorsed Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination.


Welcome to Hillary’s summer, a season chock-full of rough national headlines about her slipping poll numbers, her email controversies, Sanders’ surging popularity, Joe Biden’s presidential ruminations — and Trump.

On Monday, Clinton got a taste of what the GOP field is contending with when she made two stops during a brief two-day New Hampshire swing. In a gaggle with the national press she faced questions about Biden’s intentions; the NNU’s endorsement of Sanders; the Democratic National Committee’s debate schedule (the one her party rivals are angry about); but mainly about Trump.

She had to explain that she barely knows the billionaire — despite attending his wedding. His candidacy is “troubling” and his comments about Fox News host Megyn Kelly are “outrageous.”

Clinton saw an opportunity, however, and seized it, using the moment to level an attack on the Republican presidential field, and Marco Rubio in particular — providing the GOP with a fresh reminder of the perils of a Trump candidacy.

“I thought what he said was offensive, and I certainly think that it determines the kind of reaction that it’s getting from so many others,” Clinton told reporters. “But I think if we focus on that, we’re making a mistake. What a lot of the men on that stage in that debate said was offensive.”

Trump’s language, she said, “may be more colorful and more offensive, but the thinking, the attitude toward women, is very much the same.”

The Trump and Sanders backdrop managed to distract from her proposal for student loan reform, an otherwise significant and detailed policy plank that her campaign is hoping to use to energize students and millennial voters. It’s one of a handful of policy proposals that the campaign has sought to advance this summer.

“There is a lot of voter enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders right now, and part of that coalition is young voters — college students. And the Clinton campaign realizes that they need that kind of enthusiasm behind them as well,” explained the Monmouth University Polling Institute’s Patrick Murray. “She doesn’t want that headline to be out there that Democrats are losing enthusiasm for her. This is clearly a very good, direct appeal to a part of the Democratic base that tends to be the loudest.”

The timing of Monday’s event — the looming beginning of the school year — and the venue — Exeter High School — were no coincidence. It’s one of the campaign’s clearest steps to speak to the youth vote, as strategists within Clinton’s team remain concerned about her ability to turn out those voters at the same rate as Obama did.

“This is a real political organizing opportunity,” a senior campaign official told POLITICO over the weekend. “We have heard everywhere Hillary Clinton goes — literally everywhere she goes — we’re hearing from young people who are being held back or families who have no idea how they’re going to pay for [college].”

The former secretary of state will depart New Hampshire on Tuesday evening and will continue to sell the proposal in Iowa later this week.

“One of the questions [New Hampshire voters] ask me all the time is about affording college and being able to pay back the loans that they take out in order to go to college,” she told the crowd of over 600 on Monday afternoon, with a staffer from her Brooklyn headquarters on the scene as the official Snapchatter for the trip. The campaign also posted on Medium, sent supporters a text message about the plan, and will have Clinton participate in a Twitter conversation with young voters, according to an aide.

Clinton’s look at the issue of college affordability has been in the works since the early days of her campaign. Liberal activists have been pushing her to come out with an aggressive plan for months — and they pointedly complimented Sanders and Martin O’Malley for unveiling their own plans earlier. After closely scrutinizing every instance she has mentioned “debt-free college” on the campaign trail, those groups largely said they were happy with Clinton’s plan on Monday.

“Hillary Clinton’s plan is very big and ambitious — leading to debt-free college and increased economic opportunity for millions of Americans,” said the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s Adam Green, one of the activists who has been vocal about pressuring Clinton to embrace a plan to eliminate college debt. “The center of gravity on higher education has shifted from tinkering with interest rates to making college debt free — and Clinton’s bold proposal is emblematic of the rising economic populist tide in American politics.”

Nonetheless, the policy rollout comes just before Clinton leaves the campaign trail for vacation, and it is unlikely to be enough to single-handedly galvanize broad swaths of the youth voting population.

Clinton answers questions after announcing her college affordability plan, Monday, Aug. 10, 2015, at the high school in Exeter, N.H. | AP Photo

“I don’t think she’s ever going to get the youth vote out that [Barack] Obama did,” explained Murray. But “regardless of how enthusiastic they are, young voters still make up a small portion of the electorate. It’s more the optics — that she doesn’t have the enthusiasm behind her. This is less about winning delegates toward the nomination and more about tamping down the bad headlines.”

The campaign is betting on the durability of the candidate’s large lead over Republican contenders among young voters in national polls, which is in some cases larger than Obama’s over Mitt Romney in 2012, and that the attention to her rollout this week will generate excitement within the party.

Sanders and O’Malley, Clinton’s two main primary opponents, have both been aggressive about promoting their own college affordability plans, and the former Maryland governor on Monday sought to take credit for getting ahead of the issue, and not ceding it to the front-runner.

“Debt-free college is an issue where Gov. O’Malley has led, not followed,” said deputy campaign manager Lis Smith. “He is the only candidate in the race who actually has a record of making college more affordable.”

Clinton’s Republican opponents derided her plan and insisted Monday that it would not generate any momentum with young voters.

“This irresponsible proposal would raise taxes, increase government debt and double down on the failed Obama economic priorities that have led to a ‘new normal’ of sluggish economic growth, rising college costs spurred by Washington, and limited economic opportunities for all Americans,” said Jeb Bush, who has been engaged in an ever-escalating war of words with Clinton. “Including college graduates.”

Nirvi Shah contributed to this report.