Clinton to air new ads based off endorsements in NYC

Hillary Clinton is turning her endorsements from the New York Daily News and the New York Times into a television commercial that will begin airing Friday in New York City across the five boroughs, POLITICO has learned.

But in a sign of the campaign’s growing confidence in Clinton’s adopted home state ahead of Tuesday's primary — a Marist poll released Friday morning showed the Democratic frontrunner widening her lead to 17 points — the ad makes no mention of the brutal criticisms both papers hurled at her opponent, Bernie Sanders.


The new spot, “Decision,” quotes the New York Daily News calling Clinton “supremely knowledgeable” and “results-driven” and notes she promises to be a “true Democratic champion….advancing an ambitious Democratic agenda.”

It reminds New Yorkers heading to the polls that the New York Times found that under Clinton’s proposals, “middle-class Americans have a real shot at prosperity.”

But in its endorsement of Clinton, the New York Daily News also eviscerated Sanders as a “fantasist who’s at passionate war with reality.” And the New York Times, which endorsed Clinton back in January, noted that Sanders “does not have the breadth of experience or policy ideas that Mrs. Clinton offers.”

But the Clinton campaign does not highlight those attacks in the new ad.

It’s a contrast with the last time the campaign turned to the press to make its case. In New Hampshire last January, where Clinton was trailing Sanders by double digits, Clinton’s campaign reprinted a withering Washington Post editorial that accused Sanders of running a “fiction-filled campaign” into fliers it distributed to voters. Sanders went on to win New Hampshire by a landslide 22 points.

Sanders, meanwhile, struggling to make inroads in the final days of the heated New York race, released a new ad Friday morning that implicitly criticized Clinton for taking money from Wall Street banks as campaign contributions and speaking fees.

