As Hillary Clinton drops in the polls she’s making her best effort to reconnect with women voters, most recently by appearing on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
Many politicians, such a President Obama and Joe Biden have sought interviews with DeGeneres to show off their humor and connect with voters on a more human level. Her mid-day show has a heavily female audience.
Clinton’s Thursday afternoon appearance is part of her campaign’s strategy to conduct more national interviews and appear more relatable and less aloof as she tries to connect with voters
According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Clinton is trailing Sanders by one point in Iowa. While women voters are still inclined to support Clinton, 35 percent of women don’t trust her.
During the interview, DeGeneres all but gave her endorsement to Clinton, telling her she was the only candidate who truly spoke to issues of equality and called her “the smartest, most qualified person for this job.”
The pair joked about Clinton’s age and how she’d be one of the oldest presidents in American history if elected, to which Clinton responded, “the way I look at it is I would be the youngest woman ever elected president of the United States.”
The audience roared with laughter as Clinton joked about her granddaughter and applauded as she spoke about the discrimination women face due to their gender. She recounted one story of how she wasn’t allowed to get her own credit card in the 1970s even though she made more money than her husband at the time.
“I don’t want any young woman to take for granted how far we have come and how much further we have to go,” Clinton told the audience.
DeGeneres briefly addressed the email scandal that’s caused Clinton to lose traction among voters, to which the Democratic front-runner responded that she “made a mistake” and is “sorry for all the confusion that has ensued,” but the audience didn’t appear to care much about the dark spot that’s been looming over her campaign.
They laughed and cheered as a 5-year-old came on stage and quizzed Clinton about the American presidents and asked her about her love of tabasco sauce. Later on, Clinton learned to do the popular “Whip/NaeNae” dance with the show’s host.
This is only the fourth major public television interview Clinton has done.
