ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Hillary Clinton took to a sun-swept stage in front of city hall here to bask in her newfound fortunes after what many believe was the best week of her presidential campaign yet.

In a span that saw her poll numbers swell after the first Democratic debate, Vice President Joe Biden's decision not to run for president and a successful congressional hearing on the Benghazi, Libya, attacks which showed her to be steely and poised in the face of unforgiving House Republicans, there were plenty of reasons for her to be grinning from ear to ear.

"You wanna talk about a fighter? How about those 11 hours of testimony yesterday," gushed Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidante who appeared alongside her Friday afternoon. "That's what I'm talking about. Are you kidding me? I almost want to thank them, because you saw that 11 hours of testimony. This is why she needs to be our commander-in-chief."

Clinton's marathon appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi Thursday wasn't completely devoid of legitimate queries or new information. But she survived it without a flap and looked presidential throughout the grilling. She maintained her composure under pressure and made sure to show palpable compassion for the four victims who died in the September 2012 attack.

Meanwhile, her GOP inquisitors lost their focus, becoming obsessed with her email correspondence with longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal and overreaching by asking her painstaking details about the night of the attack, like which members of her staff were still in the office when she left it and whether she spent that night alone.

"I thought that was hitting the bottom of the barrel," says Mary Craig, referring to the questioning by Alabama Rep. Martha Roby.



Craig, a hospital chaplain who lives in Falls Church, Virginia, was one of the hundreds of fans who came out to cheer Clinton on Friday. But she acknowledges that 24-hours ago her stomach was in knots.

"I'll be honest with you, I was very nervous about yesterday and by the end of the day I was like, 'Wow.' My admiration for her went up," Craig says. "I could not believe that she did this for 11 hours and never lost her cool and her presence of mind. I thought that there were people on that panel that behaved disgracefully. It totally backfired."

Part of the problem was the expectations Republicans leaders set going in. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy went on Fox News to boast that the formation of the committee had already pushed Clinton's polling numbers down. Amid cries that the GOP's true intention was revealed, he later attempted to walk back his comments. But Clinton's campaign saw that as an opportunity to paint the process with the brush of partisanization.

While Clinton herself never mentioned the hearing at the rally, she looked like a candidate who was claiming victory at a Democratic National Committee women's event earlier in the day.

"As some of you know I had a pretty long day yesterday," she said to laughs inside a hotel ballroom in Washington. "I wanted to rise above partisanship and reach for statesmanship and that is what I tried to do."

Clinton then framed the House Republicans as overzealously attempting to undermine women's health care with a similar investigation.



"After my experience yesterday I am just amazed that they are even talking about setting up another special investigative committee. This time to investigate Planned Parenthood. I think we all know by now that's just code for a partisan witch hunt. Haven't we seen enough of that?" she said.

The DNC event allowed each candidate to speak -- and one, Lincoln Chafee, used his allotted time to drop out of the race -- but it was clearly Clinton's room.

Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor, audibly muttered three times during his speech at the teleprompter operator to "keep scrolling up." It made for a befuddling performance.

Before that, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made a point of lauding Clinton's Capitol Hill showing: "Was she not magnificent? As Bernie Sanders said and we all know, enough is enough."

At her Alexandria event, Clinton looked past the drama on the Hill surrounding her tenure as secretary of state and sought to push forward on her policy agenda.

She listed the reduction of college debt, mandatory paid leave for families, comprehensive immigration reform and closing the wage gap for women as top priorities of a potential Clinton administration.

Standing before a majority female audience, she eagerly played up her gender as the first potential female president. She recalled the story of a little girl in Nevada who asked her if she would be paid "the same amount of money as a boy president."

And while she notably latched herself to the Obama administration, pledging to continue to build on its successes, she clearly delineated herself as her own woman.

"I'm not running for President Obama's third term. I'm not running for Bill Clinton's third term. I'm running for my first term," she said to cheers.

Clinton never mentioned Sanders, her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, in either of her speeches Friday. But her call to take on the National Rifle Association at her rally was an implicit contrast with a vote Sanders took in 2005 to prohibit lawsuits against gun manufacturers when crimes are committed with their weapons.

Clinton called that vote "outrageous."



"It's basically a gift to gun manufacturers and gun sellers. It's wrong and we have to fight to repeal it," she said.

Gun violence is a particularly sensitive issue in the commonwealth given the fatal shooting of a television crew during a live broadcast in August and the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, which remains the deadliest rampage in American history.

"I am a progressive, but I'm a progressive who likes to get things done," Clinton said, echoing her statement from the Democratic debate Oct. 13.

Sparse public polling has shown Clinton with a comfortable lead over Sanders in the Virginia primary set for March 1.

But general election match-ups against a host of Republicans are much tighter.

A university poll earlier this month found that Clinton would beat Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, but lose to Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush. The survey shows her tied with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

If Sen. Jim Webb, who halted his bid for the Democratic nomination earlier this week, decides to pursue an independent candidacy, Virginia is the one place he could have an impact.

But either way, the Old Dominion State is poised to be a battleground again next November no matter who claims the major party nominations.