In the presidential campaign’s waning hours, the two major party nominees used a final opportunity to reach out to undecided voters by sticking to the script and hammering home their respective policy proposals in contrasting op-eds published by USA Today on Sunday.
Democrat Hillary Clinton promised to search for common ground with her political opponents to “build a stronger, fairer America.”
She then listed four priorities for her first 100 days in office, should she be elected: investing in new jobs, immigration reform, a constitutional amendment to reform campaign finance and improvements to the criminal justice system.
She also attacked her opponent, Republican Donald Trump, saying he has “run his campaign on divisiveness, fear and insults, and spent months pitting Americans against each other.”
In his article, Trump slammed Clinton for FBI investigations into her personal conduct and said should she be elected, she would likely face years worth of more investigations.
“America has too many problems, too many things to fix, to mire our government in years of sordid corruption and criminal investigation,” he wrote.
Trump also promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, renegotiate trade deals such as NAFTA, slash taxes and “drain the swamp of corruption” in government, a line he has repeated many times throughout his campaign.
Trump also repeated his pledge to take a hard-line stance on immigration and terrorism.
On social media, both op-eds were met with plenty of criticism from supporters of the opposing candidate.
Clinton’s promise to work across the aisle was sharply resisted by Trump voters, while Trump’s words on corruption were slammed by Clinton fans as hypocritical.
@USATODAY she has no common ground!!!
— Terilee (@Terilee39) November 6, 2016
@USATODAY @HillaryClinton cares more about illegal immigrants and her bank account than American citizens #HillaryForPrison2016 #Trump2016
— Alice Mora (@am0ra30) November 6, 2016
@USATODAY Really? How is she going to find common ground with us basket of deplorables?
— Tina Hessel (@hessel424) November 6, 2016
@USATODAY Where's he gonna start w/ his own cronies? The NRA?
— FadingFast (@KathleenDolphin) November 6, 2016
@USATODAY Did he write it in a glass house? Sorry, did he have a ghost writer write it in a glass house?
— Evil Toaster (@toaster_evil) November 6, 2016
@USATODAY Trump is corruption? Is he going to clean himself up?
— L Bee (@LostDarling) November 6, 2016
Still, the opportunity to address voters through one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the country is significant for both candidates. According to the Christian Science Monitor and FiveThirtyEight, a high number of voters are still not completely sold on which candidate for whom they plan to vote, despite or even because of the intense feelings and vitriol on both sides.
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