Bloomberg Masters in Politics hosts Tammy Haddad and Betsy Fischer Martin interviewed Hillary Clinton’s man leading her campaign’s ground efforts. Marlon Marshall, state director for all 50 states, broke down the strategy for this year’s battleground states. In their conversation with John Dickerson, host of CBS News’ Face the Nation and the author of the new book Whistlestop: My My Favorite Moments from Presidential Campaign History, they discussed news that Donald Trump has recently enlisted former FOX News chairman Roger Ailes to assist with debate prep.
Many have pointed to Utah, which has solidly voted Republican in presidential elections since 1968, as state Clinton could pick up. According to Marshall, “President Clinton was out there the other day. He did a meeting with some community leaders in Utah. I think a lot of public polls will show Utah to be closer than one would expect. I attribute it to a couple of things: One, I think our message is resonating on the economy and what Hillary wants to do to build an economy for everyone and not just ones at the top. But I do think Trump’s rhetoric is very divisive rhetoric. In some states it’s really turning people off. I think in a state like Utah, which is typically more conservative, they’re saying, ‘This is not the type of person who should represent this country or our state.’ So, are we going to win Utah? I don’t know. But is it something that’s on our radar? Yeah, we’re gonna take a look.
When it comes to the differences between Trump’s ground game and Clinton’s Marshall says, “I think, one, we just have a general belief that organizing matters. I think you’ve heard out of his mouth that these big rallies and other things are kind of what he’s done in his campaign. I think rallies are good. One of the things you’ve probably seen us doing at rallies, when we have rallies, we actually are signing people up as potential volunteers.”
The hosts also caught up with John Dickerson to get his take on Trump’s new hires, Breitbart exec Stephen Bannon as the campaign’s chief executive and veteran GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway as Trump’s new campaign manager. Dickerson also discussed the optics of a Trump-Ailes alliance given Ailes recent controversies. “You can imagine a more traditional campaign not wanting to be associated with a figure who’s in the news for allegations that Ailes has been but Trump doesn’t really give into that kind of stuff. Will it help? He’s had a pretty good track record. What will be interesting is Donald Trump has a pretty big base of support but he needs to build his support with voters who want him to behave a little bit differently. And the question is whether he can behave differently, whether he wants to, and whether you can even imagine what behaving differently means in this context.”
You can check out the full interview here.
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