Hillary Clinton appeared in Orlando Wednesday at the Frontline Youth and Family Center to talk about the economy, jobs for people with disabilities and police shootings. For reasons still unclear to her campaign, Clinton is struggling to put distance between herself and GOP challenger Donald Trump in the polls.
Two recent polls say the race between Clinton and Trump is too close to call. One of them, a New York Times Upshot/Siena College Florida Poll released Monday gave Clinton an only 1-point lead against Trump in the state. Back in 2012, however, observers will recall that pollsters had Obama ahead of Mitt Romney by only a point, as well.
Clinton acknowledged Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and encouraged the standing-room only crowd to stay committed to seeing Val Demings win her congressional race in November. One source at Frontline estimated that some 2,500 people came out.
“The fire marshall was complaining because of the number of people that showed up. There was a line out the door and winding around the building. We filled up the main floor and had to use overflow rooms.  We finally had to shut the door and a lot of people never got inside,” the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. Photos of the overflow seating show the large turnout.
Clinton spoke about increasing the number of jobs for people with disabilities, and again laid out her agenda for continuing the improvements made in restoring the economy to its pre-George Bush days. She mentioned the spate of killings of unarmed black men by police and expressed equal concern over the killings of police officers in apparent retaliation, saying people are being killed who should not be killed.
The Clinton campaign has a strategy for reaching the demographic that many feel is critical to this election. She has set aside $30 million for digital advertising targeting young people who increasingly get their news online rather than through traditional media. Young African-Americans and Latinos will be part of this push during the final stretch of the campaign, and ads will be placed in outlets such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, CNN, Vice, Spotify, Pandora, Univision, Telemundo, BET and The Root.
The campaign is also releasing a new radio ad with First Lady Michelle Obama targeting African-American radio stations in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In the ad, Ms. Obama asks voters who supported her husband to back Clinton, saying: “We need to stand with Hillary so we can build on the progress we’ve made together and keep moving our country forward.”
Hillary Clinton’s full speech at Frontline follows:
[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=rkvNLynC2JU” width=”500″ height=”300″]
