Out West, Clinton paints grim picture of life under Trump

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, in Las Vegas. AP

LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton painted a grim picture for minorities of life under a Donald Trump presidency Wednesday, as she sought to energize Democrats and sway undecided voters in the election’s final days.

Clinton was campaigning in the West, both in battleground Nevada and in Arizona. The latter is a reliably Republican state where Democrats see an opening against Trump given his unpopularity with Hispanics.

Speaking to a union-heavy crowd in Las Vegas, Clinton urged voters to imagine what life would be like if Trump is inaugurated on the steps of the US Capitol in January. For Hispanics, she said, that would mean having a president “who doesn’t see you as Americans.” And for blacks, she said it would mean having a president who believes their lives are consumed by “crime and poverty and despair.”

For Clinton, the final full week of the presidential campaign has turned into a greatest hits list of her most searing attacks on Trump and the Republican’s most glaring missteps. On Tuesday, she campaigned in Florida with Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe winner who Trump criticized for gaining weight, and slammed Trump repeatedly for his demeaning comments about women.

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In Las Vegas Wednesday, Clinton took aim at Trump’s feud with an American-born judge of Mexican heritage who ruled against the businessman in an ongoing legal matter. Trump said earlier this year that Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican roots meant he had a conflict of interest in the case given his proposal to build a wall along the US Southern border.

Clinton said Curiel “is as American as Donald Trump.”

Clinton’s efforts to sharpen the contrast with Trump has left her campaign shrouded in a dark, negative tone as she closes out her White House bid. It’s a conscious choice her campaign says it necessary as polls tighten ahead of next Tuesday’s election.

“The fact is the choice that Donald Trump represents is pretty dark,” Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters traveling with Clinton to Nevada Wednesday. “You need to make it real for voters who are undecided.”

Clinton’s camp says it saw polls tightening even before the FBI announced Friday that it was reviewing new material that could be related to a dormant investigation into the former secretary of state’s handling of classified information. While Clinton says the FBI has “no case,” the review has set Democrats on edge, worried that it could turn off late-deciding voters./rga

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