WASHINGTON _ In an unusual move for a Democrat seeking the White House, Hillary Clinton is pumping money into an ad campaign aimed at Texans _ a spot that highlights an even rarer occurrence, her recommendation from The Dallas Morning News.
Clinton is the first Democrat The News has backed for president since 1936. And in the last four decades, only two other Democrats bothered to buy advertising time in Texas: her husband, Bill Clinton, in 1996, and Jimmy Carter in 1976, the last time the party's nominee carried the state.
The campaign announced the modest buy on Monday. The ad will air in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and online. It's probably not a bold enough move to force Trump to divert resources. But it suggests the Clinton campaign sees at least a glimmer of hope in polls showing a tight battle for the state's 38 electoral votes.
"Donald Trump is becoming more unhinged by the day, and that is increasing prospects for Democrats further down the ballot," Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook told reporters Monday in a call focused on the campaign's aggressive moves in Arizona, long a Republican redoubt, and other battlegrounds.
The Texas investment _ aides wouldn't say how much _ is small by contrast.
Clinton hasn't stumped in Texas since winning the March primary, though she dispatched her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, to campaign in Austin and Houston about a month ago.
Trump has not acted entirely like a Republican who can take the state for granted. He held private fundraising events last week in Dallas and Houston, and rallies in those cities in mid-June.
He's been on the defensive since the Oct. 7 revelation of a video in which he boasts of forcing himself on women sexually. Nine women have come forward since then alleging that it was more than "locker room talk," accusing him of behavior of the exact sort he had described _ kissing and groping them uninvited. He has called all of these allegations fabrications.
Clinton has been pressing the advantage.
Texas Democrats pine for victory but generally concede their long odds. History is against them. Barack Obama lost Texas by 16 points in 2012 and 12 points four years earlier. Republican George W. Bush, a former governor, won by 21 points in 2000 and 23 points on his way to a second term.
Recent polls show a tight contest in Texas, with Trump's lead continuing to dwindle. A poll for WFAA-TV and other TV stations around the state released last week showed Trump favored by 4 percentage points _ within the margin of error.
"We're not a battleground state," Garry Mauro, Clinton's Texas campaign chairman, told the Austin American-Statesman. "Demographically, Texas is a rich target for Hillary Clinton. Historically we're a red state, but because Trump is so limited demographically just to Anglo males, we have a real opportunity to change the dynamics in Texas significantly, and I think this buy shows that."
Democrats are pushing the idea that Trump is collapsing. There is evidence that's not entirely wishful thinking: His lead in deep-red Alaska has plummeted to 1 percentage point, for instance.
In Arizona, the Clinton campaign is adding $2 million to its bet for advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts. And it's dispatching Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, Chelsea Clinton on Wednesday and first lady Michelle Obama on Thursday.
"Donald Trump's hateful rhetoric and deeply disrespectful remarks about Sen. John McCain have made Arizona more competitive," Mook said. "This is really a state that would really foreclose a path for Donald Trump to win the White House."
The Clinton campaign is pouring $6 million into advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts in battleground states with U.S. Senate races that could tip the balance in the upper chamber: New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio.
Clinton's last campaign event was Friday in Seattle, and she isn't expected to hit the stump again before Friday _ a strategy of letting Trump flail as much as possible without distraction. They meet Wednesday night in Las Vegas for their third and final debate. The next night, they'll share a spotlight in New York at the annual Al Smith Dinner, a white-tie Catholic benefit named for the former New York governor who became the first Catholic nominee for president.
