Hillary Clinton’s campaign is using renewed interest in her use of a private server while secretary of state to claim the issue has helped to motivate and embolden her supporters.
“I still prefer that it had not happened,” Clinton’s director of communications, Jennifer Palmieri told reporters Thursday, adding, “but we do think it has helped motivate our base.”
FBI Director James B. Comey, who recommended in July that no charges be brought against Clinton for her private emails, informed Democratic and Republican lawmakers last week that an investigation of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner turned up additional emails possibly related to the Democratic nominee’s server.
The additional emails were found on a laptop shared by Weiner and his estranged wife and longtime Clinton aide, Huma Abedin.
Despite the frenzy in newsrooms over the FBI’s renewed interest in the private emails, Clinton has maintained her six-point lead over her GOP opponent, Donald Trump, a possible signal that the note isn’t as damaging as some politicos and pundits have suggested.
Further, between Oct. 29 and Oct. 31, the Clinton campaign claims it enjoyed its greatest online fundraising haul of the 2016 election cycle, raising an estimated $11 in large and small individual contributions.
“Fueled by record-breaking fundraising in the last 72 two hours, we are supercharging our GOTV program … to make sure voters know the urgency and the stakes of voting on Nov. 8,” Clinton’s Deputy National Press Secretary, Jesse Ferguson, said in a statement made available to the Washington Examiner.
A senior campaign aide claimed elsewhere that the amount raised online in the first three days after the appearance of the FBI letter is the most they’ve seen “at any point since Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee in Philadelphia.” That aide is joined by others on the campaign in suggesting the $11 million is just another data point showing the FBI letter has actually been a huge boon to their campaign.
Robby Mook was first on the team to claim this when he told reporters last weekend that he heard multiple reports of supporters and volunteers doubling their get out the vote efforts in direct response to the letter.
“[B]ased on the anecdotes I’m hearing from our team on the ground, this situation has created an urgency, an intensity among our volunteers and activists that was already high because we are so close to the election but that our volunteers are rallying behind Hillary,” Mook said.
“[T]hey’re as upset and concerned as we are here, and they are turning out, not only to have her back but to rally our supporters to turn out and vote as early voting goes into full swing. And we’re not just seeing this in our offices on the ground, but also in our, in our online, in the online space as well. And the — I think this is — we already had momentum and wind behind our back going into yesterday. I think this has only increased the momentum that we’re feeling among our activists on the ground,” he added.
