Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump open general election battle with pitches in swing states

Fresh off her history-making presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton set off for a Rust Belt bus tour Friday while Donald Trump made his pitch in Colorado, a swing-state-centric kickoff to what promises to be a bruising 100-day general election fight.

Clinton is touring the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Ohio to try to sway white working-class voters attracted to the New York businessman’s anti-immigrant appeals and his promises to “rip up” trade deals blamed for the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Opening the tour with a rally here in the city where she became the first woman to accept a major party’s presidential nomination, she accused Trump of issuing empty promises and blasted him for manufacturing his own products, like ties and shirts, in other countries.

“He doesn’t make a thing in America except bankruptcies,” she said to a crowd of more than 5,000 in a gymnasium at Temple University. Clinton is promising new investments in clean energy and transportation infrastructure that would create jobs in areas where high unemployment has lingered after the Great Recession.

“We’ve made progress, but we have work to do to make sure everybody is included,” she said.

Trump was in Colorado Springs, a conservative area of a state where he faces an uphill climb with growing numbers of young professionals and Latinos. While Clinton has pushed an optimistic message, Trump has repeatedly described the country as being dragged down by establishment politicians.

“Same old stuff, our country needs change!” Trump tweeted after Clinton’s rally in Philadelphia.

Before the crowd of several thousand at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, he dismissed Clinton’s convention speech as “so average,” and crowed about topping Democrats in television ratings for their respective gatherings’ final nights.

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colo. on Friday.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press )

Don Reeg, a 64-year-old bricklayer, said Trump needed to stick with his plan to fight crime and boost border security.

“A lot of people don’t like it, but that’s OK,” he said. “He just needs to stick with the theme he’s been doing and he’ll be fine.”

Polls have shown a close race, although how the public gauged Clinton’s performance at the Democratic convention won’t be known for several days.

Both candidates have proven to be deeply unpopular with voters in general.

“This will be a battle of how much each candidate can make you hate the other candidate,” said Laura Carno, a Republican strategist in the state.

Clinton’s convention marked the official end of a divisive primary battle with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose most passionate supporters she has struggled to win over.

But there were signs of hard-fought unity within the Democratic Party this week, and even some die-hard Sanders supporters felt more comfortable voting for Clinton.

For Tim Weaver, a 34-year-old delegate from Texas, it was the parade of party luminaries – President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sanders himself – that won him over.

“A lot of people that I trust have spoken for her,” he said.

The convention was also a chance to emphasize parts of Clinton’s biography, such as her work for the Children’s Defense Fund after graduating from law school, that remain less well-known than her more controversial tenure as a politically active first lady.

“In the 1990s, I would have told you I am never voting for Hillary. I didn’t like her,” said Jane Storsten, 62, of New Jersey, who has come around to backing Clinton. “I got a chance to look at her record. Her actual record, what she’s done. I didn’t know about a lot of these things.”

Clinton seemed ready to seize her historic moment. The loudspeakers blared the Sheryl Crowe country anthem “Woman in the White House,” and supporters wore buttons saying “Madam President.” One woman from South Jersey attended the rally with her two young daughters wearing homemade shirts saying “I can be president.”

Red, white and blue bunting ringed the gymnasium where Clinton spoke, and supporters were handed American flags that they waved as they chanted “U.S.A.”

While Trump has pledged to put “America first,” Clinton has tried to portray him as a bully out for himself.

“His convention seemed more about insulting me than helping the American people,” Clinton said.

Trump supporters had mixed feelings about the Democratic convention. Ernie Albertsen, a retired general contractor, dismissed all of the speakers as liars. “They’re just up there barking like a rabid dog,” he said.

But his wife, Jeanne Noel, an engineering technician, was worried.

“There’s so much support for Hillary,” Noel said. “I was scared for the first time for Trump.”

After leaving Philadelphia, Clinton stopped in Hatfield, a town of 3,300 about 30 miles north of Philadelphia, to visit K’NEX, a company that makes construction toys. She and her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, were to hold another rally later Friday in a downtown market at Harrisburg, the state capital, another 100 miles west.

Other stops on the three-day tour are expected to include Pittsburgh and the Ohio cities of Youngstown and Columbus.

The trip echoed a similar one taken by her husband, Bill, when he ran for president in 1992. After his convention in New York, he launched an eight-state bus tour ending in St. Louis.

Megerian reported from Philadelphia and Mason from Colorado Springs, Colo. Times staff writer Evan Halper in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Twitter: @chrismegerian, @melmason

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