How Hillary Clinton can, and will, put her ‘bad week’ behind her

After a week’s rest following illness, Clinton can and will come back fighting after a ‘bad week’ leaves the race virtually tied in the polls, and ultimately exposes Trump’s, not Clinton’s, weaknesses.

After being taken ill at the commemoration event for the September 11th attacks in New York and then later having to reveal a pneumonia diagnosis and more health details, Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail with her speech at the Black Woman’s Agenda in Washington D.C, the first act of an attempt to put the previous weak of her campaign behind her. At that event she promised to “end her campaign like she started her career”, and deliver eight weeks of solid campaigning on her own platform for the White House.

With just ten days to go until the first Presidential debate, the campaign will reach its climax with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump podium to podium, head to head on the issues in front of millions of American voters. These next ten days and that debate will be clinton’s chance to claw back lost ground, and regain her position as a a candidate leading on the issue, in the polls and on people’s perceptions.

How does she do this? Firstly, three words: Obama, Obama, Obama. First Lady Michelle Obama was out on the campaign trail on Thursday while President Barack Obama lined up for a speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, each reciting their messages from the Democratic National Convention in July where they both ensued optimism for the possible first term of Hillary Clinton’s Presidency. the First Lady is incredibly popular, while the President himself commands a 58% approval rating — significantly higher than the majority of out-going Presidents and a positive sign for Clinton’s campaign to replace him as a Democratic President.

History has of course vented on the side that a higher approval rating for an out-going President improves favourability towards and the polling results of a Presidential nominee from the same party. Obama’s approval rating, and indeed the perceived popularity of the First Lady, who is particularly popular among women voters, puts Clinton in good stead in time for the debates.

Secondly, the feeling around the Democratic National Convention needs to be and will be revived by the Clinton campaign. The DNC took place in a unifying and patriotic manner, combining Sanders and Clinton’s supporters to nominate Clinton. The convention also included speeches from multiple big names from the Democratic tent, the Khizr and Ghazala Khan, who lost their son fighting in Iraq, and figures fro Sen. Elizabeth Warren, to ex-Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, to actress Meryl Streep.

Ultimately, the DNC portrayed the best of the Democratic Party has to offer the USA, and the bounce it gave Clinton meant that in some polls she even managed to have a 15% point lead over Donald Trump. The convention bounce that occurred from the highly successful DNC won’t need another convention to re-gin, just simply, the Clinton campaign needs to commit itself to the message the DNC portrayed: one of optimism and unity in their candidate, in America and its institution, and in the “Stronger Together” motto.

Finally, Clinton’s General Election campaign so far has seen minimal voice from her former Democratic Primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders. Although appearing on interviews on TV, including recently to warn against people voting for third parties candidates or using a “protest vote”, Sanders has only appeared besides Clinton at a rally once — at his initial endorsement rally where he alled on people to elect Clinton as President. Clinton using his voice, one of the left, may well ensure that any leaking of support to third party candidates like the Green Party’s Jill Stein or the Libertarian candidate Gov. Gary Johnson would be minimal and would shore up Hillary’s poll leads.

Sander’s power over young, progressive and liberal minded white voters is second to none after the campaign he ran during the Primary season, and considering these are groups least enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party’s’ voter coalition, it would make sense to deploy Sanders much more than has so far been seen on the campaign trail.

On a final note, despite Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis and absence from the campaign trail, the Presidential race overall has remained particularly static. Clinton still has a 2% lead in the polls according to the New York Times Poll accumulation, and a 74% chance of winning the Presidency in their ‘UpShot’ forecast. Above anything, instead of showing Clinton’s weakness around the far-right conspiracy theories of her health, it shows Trump’s weaknesses: a Republican nominee whose support is seemingly capped at around 40% on poll averages, and who cannot, even when Clinton is down, seem to overtake his opponent.

Trump’s weaknesses are therefore much greater than Clinton’s. Not only does Trump, an individual a majority of American voters actually view as being racist, have a cap on his support, his only hope of the Presidency is by convincing Clinton supporters to either not turn out or to switch their votes to third party candidates, especially in states like Pennsylvania and Virginia where Clinton leads by majorities so high that both states have been reclassified as “safe Democrat”. Adding to the idea that Bernie Sanders is now warning against these protest votes, Trump could be locked out of the White House by means of Electoral College Maths, even if he claws back in national polls.

Earlier I mentioned the Presidential debates are just ten days away. In ten days America will see its choices to replace Barack Obama. They will face the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. With Clinton promising her fightback from here on and a positive campaign message based on her positive vision of the USA to boot, Hillary Clinton can and will put this past ‘bad week’ behind her.