After Well-Oiled Convention, Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Hopes for a Bounce
Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, onstage at the end of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Thursday. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA — Democrats rose on Friday seeking to extend the excitement spurred by a four-day convention that culminated in the presidential nomination of Hillary Clinton, taking the fight against Donald J. Trump to the battleground states that could decide an election just over 100 days away.
Two weeks of speeches, music, infighting and ultimately mountains of balloons and confetti for Democrats and Republicans have cemented the terms of the debate and left both parties as unified as they can be. Now comes the grueling homestretch of the campaign, where advertising will ramp up and the bickering between the candidates becomes even more biting.
Signaling the importance of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Clinton and her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, did not skip town on Friday. Instead they held a final rally at Temple University to kick off a post-convention bus tour that will take them through Harrisburg and Pittsburgh and into Ohio, where they will make stops in Youngstown and Columbus.
That Pennsylvania, which Democrats have carried since 1992, is in play underscores the threat posed by Mr. Trump, who campaigned in Scranton on Wednesday. The Republican nominee’s appeals to white, working-class voters make him attractive in the rust belt and could potentially reshape the election map.
A Suffolk University poll released this week showed Mrs. Clinton with a nine-point lead in Pennsylvania, but she is not taking anything for granted. Democrats hope that hosting their national convention in Philadelphia will give Mrs. Clinton a boost in the state.
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‘Stronger Together’ and ‘I Am Your Voice’ — How the Nominees’ Convention Speeches Compare
A visual analysis of the presidential and vice-presidential convention speeches.
“I think Democrats will be unified against Donald Trump and in favor of a more hopeful optimistic message for the country,” said Josh Shapiro, Montgomery County commissioner who is running to be Pennsylvania’s attorney general in November. “Everyone will be on the same page coming out of Philly this week.”
Political analysts will be watching closely in the coming days to see if Mrs. Clinton receives a bounce nationally from the convention, which was well received for its crisp choreography. Mr. Trump overtook her in some polls after last week’s Republican convention in Cleveland, leaving the outcome of a race that could reshape the country very much unclear.
While Democrats generally considered Mrs. Clinton’s acceptance speech on Thursday night to be one of her best, Republicans offered reviews that were more mixed. Many considered it to be a classic liberal speech filled with policies they could never support, but some Republicans who still refuse to support Mr. Trump expressed remorse about the direction of their party.
“There’s a logic to this speech that is in American mainstream,” said Stuart Stevens, a former adviser to Mitt Romney. “Trump was dark and outside mainstream.”
Unsurprisingly, the Trump campaign pushed back against Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that Mr. Trump was taking the Republican Party from “morning in America” to “midnight in America.”
“If it’s midnight in America, it’s because of the seven and a half years of the Obama and Clinton administration,” Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, said on Fox News on Friday.
Mr. Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, said on the Hugh Hewitt radio program that Mrs. Clinton’s performance made clear why voters should choose the Republican ticket.
“I think last night, the American people heard the other half of the debate that’s going to go on for the next 100 days,” he said. “If you like a stifled and struggling economy at home, then Hillary Clinton is your choice.”
Mr. Trump was skewered by many of the speakers at the Democratic convention, where his business record, his combative policies and even his sanity were called into question. Watching the proceedings, he clearly took it personally.
“I wanted to hit a couple of those speakers so hard,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Iowa on Thursday night. “I was going to hit one guy in particular — a very little guy — I was going to hit this guy so hard his head would spin.”
Donald J. Trump "Little" Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!
Mr. Trump, who was heading to Colorado for more campaign events, also criticized Mrs. Clinton’s speech on Friday. Taking to Twitter, he said that his opponent envisions a borderless America where workers have no power and no security. And he took issue with the way she characterized him.
“Crooked Hillary Clinton made up facts about me, and ‘forgot’ to mention the many problems of our country, in her very average scream!” Mr. Trump said.