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Buoyed by win, Clinton shifts aim to Trump
Democrats plot ways to reframe his candidacy
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke at a “Get Out The Vote’’ event in Nashville Sunday. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
By Ken Thomas
Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Emboldened by her South Carolina landslide, Hillary Clinton is shifting her focus to Republican front-runner Donald Trump as her party seeks consensus on the best ways to challenge the billionaire’s unpredictable nature in a general election.

As Clinton enters the series of Super Tuesday contests this week, allies of the former secretary of state, unaffiliated Democratic strategists, and the national party are stockpiling potential ammunition about Trump, reviewing reams of court filings, requesting information about his business dealings from state governments, and conducting polls to test lines of attack.

Among the options: Questioning Trump’s qualifications and temperament to be president, scrutinizing his business practices and bankruptcy filings, and re-airing his inflammatory statements about women and minorities, who will be central to the Democrats’ efforts in November.

‘‘Is this the guy you would trust with the nuclear codes? Is this the guy you would trust with your son or daughter in the military? Is this the guy you would trust to run the economy?’’ asked Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut, a Clinton backer, pointing to a likely argument from Democrats.

Clinton, celebrating her rout of Democratic rival Bernie Sanders in South Carolina, took direct aim at Trump on Saturday night, telling supporters, ‘‘Despite what you hear, we don’t need to make America great again. America never stopped being great.’’

‘‘But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls, we need to be tearing down barriers,’’ she said.

While party leaders see Clinton in a favorable position against Trump, they caution that the real estate mogul has shown a mastery of the media and an ability to stay on offense throughout the GOP primaries. And they acknowledge Trump has successfully tapped into a deep vein of economic insecurity running through the electorate.

‘‘Any race he is in is unpredictable,’’ said David Brock, a Clinton supporter who oversees several Democratic super PACs. ‘‘Any strategy we come up with today is going to have to be awfully flexible because we don’t know what to expect from this guy.’’

Clinton aides and allies also worry that Trump’s unorthodox constituency of working-class white voters might allow him to put more states in play compared with past nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain. And they note large voter turnouts in GOP primaries won by Trump.

But Democrats predict a Trump nomination could have a splintering effect on the Republican Party and are looking for ways to exacerbate it.

A survey of 800 likely Republican voters commissioned by a Democratic firm led by Stan Greenberg, who served as President Bill Clinton’s pollster, found that 20 percent of Republicans are ‘‘uncertain’’ whether they would back Trump or Clinton in a head-to-head match-up.

‘‘If people are fearful that you can’t trust Trump with nuclear weapons, if you have Republican validators like Senator McCain and other Republicans in the foreign policy establishment saying they can’t trust Trump, there’s a potential for a splintering off of huge Republican base voters,’’ Greenberg said.

In a recent fund-raising appeal, Clinton said Trump was ‘‘looking more and more likely to be the Republican nominee. The man who riles up his crowds by calling Mexican-Americans criminals and suggesting Muslims should be banned from entering this country has limitless resources to run his campaign.’’

Her message underscored Democrats’ interest in holding Trump below 30 percent support among Hispanics, a level few think would allow the businessman to win the White House.

While Trump spends far more time assailing his Republican rivals, he has previewed some attack lines he would likely use against Clinton, describing her as a liar and failed secretary of state who would have been indicted over her e-mail scandal were she not so cozy with President Obama.

He has made it clear he’s ready to take personal shots at Clinton, bringing up her husband’s past infidelities and suggesting she was complicit in what Trump described as Bill Clinton’s abuse of women.