Clinton pumps up early voting in Iowa, where she trails Donald Trump
DES MOINES, Iowa _ Hillary Clinton didn't want to leave anything to chance when she arrived here for a rally on the first day of early voting in Iowa. Her campaign stationed volunteers around her downtown rally to direct members of the audience to nearby polling places to submit their ballots.
"When you finish here, you can go vote," she told the crowd of roughly 2,000. "We can be on the path to victory here in Iowa."
President Barack Obama won Iowa in 2008 and 2012, but Clinton is trailing Donald Trump in the state, lagging 5 percentage points behind in a RealClearPolitics average of polls.
She hopes voting early can give her campaign an edge, but mail ballots haven't kept pace with previous elections.
About 54,000 Democrats had requested absentee ballots as of Friday, according to the Iowa secretary of state's office. That's far more than Republican voters, but about half of what Democratic voters requested at this point four years ago. Democrats rely on early voting more than Republicans in this state.
_ Los Angeles Times
