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A determined Clinton woos wary voters: blue-collar whites

Truman Burden, a 58-year-old retired pipe-fitter and a one-time coal miner, said in Louisville he hoped to steer his former colleagues away from Trump.

“What I’m trying to tell blue-collar workers is, you know where Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton stand,” he told AFP.
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“If you want to take a chance on an unknown, then you may have buyer’s remorse.”

Exit polls in several states have shown Hillary Clinton losing the white male vote by substantial numbers to Sanders.

In a November face-off, the billionaire businessman appears destined to hold an advantage over Clinton, at least initially, with working-class whites.

“They see through her,” said real estate manager Bill Dunn, speaking of blue-collar workers, as he ate dinner at a barbecue joint in Paducah, a city in southwestern Kentucky.

“They like honesty, and she’s missing that.”

Clinton’s West Virginia loss to Sanders was a sober reckoning for a candidate who crushed Obama there in 2008.

One Clinton strategy appears to be to target voters who have been turned off by Trump’s harsh rhetoric and policy positions.

“This is scary, dangerous talk. This is the talk of a loose cannon who is making statements and creating confusion,” Clinton said.

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“We can’t afford that.”

For Cuban-born Lazaro Marti, a truck driver in Louisville, November will bring a tough decision.

“I don’t like Hillary but I’m afraid of Mr. Trump, so oh my God,” he said, shaking his head and acknowledging Trump’s belligerence towards immigrants.

But he said many of his white working-class acquaintances in Kentucky, whom he called “tough people,” have already circled the wagons.

“They talk about Hillary like they’re talking about the devil,” Marti said.

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