‘Because I Wasn’t Perfect’: Hillary Clinton Claims Female Voters Deserted Her During 2016 Elections

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton told US newspaper The New York Times that female voters deserted her in the final leg of her 2016 US presidential election campaign because she was “not perfect”.

“They left me because they just couldn’t take a risk on me, because as a woman, I’m supposed to be perfect,” Clinton was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

“They were willing to take a risk on [former President Trump] — who had a long list of, let’s call them flaws, to illustrate his imperfection — because he was a man, and they could envision a man as president and commander in chief,” she further added.

Clinton’s allies also alleged following her election loss to Donald Trump that the Democrat was exposed to ‘sexist double standards’ on the campaign trail, The Hill said in a report. Her allies said that Clinton dealt with questions and criticisms that male candidates would not face.

“Is there a double standard? One hundred percent times 100 percent. And God forbid if she coughs,” Tracy Sefl, a Democratic consultant and Clinton surrogate, was quoted as saying by The Hill.

The report also highlighted that former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley also faced sexist attacks. Haley had suspended her campaign in March and has not backed Donald Trump.

Indian-American former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had called Haley as “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels” during a Republican primary debate last year in Miami.

Ramaswamy dropped from the race in January and endorsed Trump.

Clinton attacked members of her own party and said it was a long-term failure for the party as it did not strengthen abortion rights. She claimed that the Democrats failed to understand the impact of the anti-abortion powers and were caught off-guard when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which ended the federal right to abortion access.

“We didn’t take it seriously, and we didn’t understand the threat. Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realise we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country. We could have done more to fight,” she told the newspaper.

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