Shadowed by scandal and hindered by her low-key campaign style, Hillary Clinton has made it easy at times to overlook the historic nature of her candidacy as the first female major-party nominee for president.
The email controversy that has dogged Mrs. Clinton for more than two years, combined with lingering criticism about her role in the Benghazi attack and the pay-for-access culture at the Clinton Foundation, have distracted from her campaign message and groundbreaking status. Her political baggage has highlighted divisions and underscored that women are not a monolithic voting bloc when it comes to the first potential female president.
“She doesn’t represent anything to me as a woman that’s good,” said Susan Smiley, a Republican state committeewoman in Massachusetts. “I really thought [the first female candidate] would be like rock-star status. There’s just no way I could even consider her.”
Other women say Mrs. Clinton has struck the right balance of promoting issues that women care about without making the campaign a litmus test on electing a female president.
“You have to run on your merits and let somebody else talk about the fact that you’re breaking new ground,” said Mandy Powers Norrell, a Democratic state representative from Lancaster, South Carolina. “When we hear her talk about health care or equal pay, I think she’s done a really good job of balancing the need to bring those forward but also not overplaying her hand.”
Polls in the final two weeks of the campaign show female voters favoring Mrs. Clinton anywhere from 10 to 17 percentage points over Republican nominee Donald Trump. The Republican has been leading among male voters by 2 to 5 points
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