Clinton adds ‘racial justice’ tab to website
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign has added a “racial justice” tab to its website as she competes for minority voters in Nevada and South Carolina.
The website’s “issues” page includes a rundown of almost 30 issues, including campaign finance reform and healthcare. Before late Tuesday, there was not a specific tab on Clinton’s racial justice platform.
{mosads}However, separate links directed to her positions on issues facing minority communities like criminal justice reform, immigration reform and voting rights. Those issues are now also reflected in the new tab.
Minority voters have become a crucial factor in the tightening race between Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders, who has caught up to her at the polls just days before Saturday’s Nevada caucuses.
The former secretary of State had previously relied on her strong leads with minority voters — mainly Hispanics in Nevada and black voters in South Carolina.
While Clinton had previously held major leads in both states, a Wednesday CNN/ORC poll showed the two in essentially a dead heat in Nevada. The numbers did not specify how non-white voters viewed the candidates but suggested Clinton outpolled Sanders with those voters.
Recent polls by Public Policy Polling found Clinton ahead in 10 of the 12 states voting in early March, in large part due to support from black voters.
The once-sleepy Democratic race has turned contentious on racial issues, with Sanders responding to accusations from the Clinton camp that he was late to the party on racial justice.
Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (R-Ga.) blasted Sanders on the issue last week, while Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the House’s highest-ranking Hispanic, attacked Sanders’s record on immigration reform on Twitter on Wednesday.
Clinton underscored her push to define herself as the best Democratic candidate on racial issues in a Tuesday speech, calling for “breaking down barriers” facing African-Americans.
Sanders’s campaign has vehemently opposed the characterization, with campaign surrogate and former NAACP head Ben Jealous defending Sanders’s “lifelong” commitment to racial justice.
His campaign’s website has had a racial justice tab since August, when the candidate had a series of events interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters.
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