Hillary Clinton debuted a more pointed message Thursday aimed at winning over minorities, as she bet her campaign for the presidency on her ability to entice black and Latino voters to support her over Bernie Sanders.
In a debate held just two days after the Vermont senator trounced Clinton in New Hampshire, she called for vast changes to the criminal justice system, railed against “systemic racism” and warned that Sanders’ plan to expand healthcare would risk the first black president’s signature policy achievement.
Sanders sharpened his tone as well, adding a vow to drastically reduce incarceration rates in his first term to his call for a political “revolution.” He invoked the “beyond unspeakable” incarceration rates of black men and said race relations would be better under him than any other White House contender.
Clinton retooled her campaign after her 22-point loss in New Hampshire unearthed weaknesses in a campaign once thought to be on an inevitable march to the nomination. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, she was abandoned by an overwhelming majority of young voters.
The former secretary of state hopes to bounce back with wins in contests this month in Nevada and South Carolina, where her advisers believe a largely minority Democratic electorate will flock to her camp. She is also stepping up her pitch to women who want to elect the nation’s first female president.
She cast herself as the defender of “the hard-fought gains that women have made, that make no mistake about it, are under tremendous attack. Not just by the Republican presidential candidates but by a whole national effort to try to setback women’s rights.”
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