Hillary Clinton chooses Columbus over Cincy
Want to see Hillary Clinton when she visits Ohio next week?
Pay $2,700 -- or drive to Columbus.
Clinton has canceled plans to hold a grassroots-organizing Women for Hillary event Sept. 10 in Cincinnati. She'll attend a similar event in Columbus that day instead.
She still plans to attend a Cincinnati-area fundraiser hosted by Jennie Berliant and her husband, Allan, the CEO of Hyde Park's Best Express Foods and former member of the national finance committee for President Barack Obama's campaign. Attending the fundraiser costs $2,700 per person, the maximum per-person donation for the primary cycle, according to an invitation viewed by The Enquirer.
Clinton, making her second presidential bid after serving as U.S. secretary of state, is facing an increasingly stiff primary challenge from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The self-described socialist has led Clinton in the past two polls in New Hampshire, home to the nation's first primary, and trails her by just 7 percentage points in the Des Moines Register / Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll released Monday.
Clinton's visit to Columbus next week will take her to the home turf of Gov. John Kasich, whose Republican presidential campaign continues to gain momentum. In her previous bid for president, she won the 2008 Democratic primary in swing-state Ohio against now-President Barack Obama, getting 54 percent of the vote.
The former first lady visited Cleveland last week, where her remarks included advocating for the U.S. Senate election of her longtime friend and ally, former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. Strickland hopes to challenge Republican Sen. Rob Portman, of Terrace Park, but he must first hold off Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld in a Democratic primary.
Sittenfeld on Monday appeared to try to drive a wedge between Clinton and Strickland, releasing a statement highlighting Clinton's push for gun control -- and contrasting that with Strickland's record opposing tighter firearms restrictions.
One of Sittenfeld's chief donors and supporters, interestingly enough, is Allan Berliant, host of Clinton's Cincy fundraiser.
Clinton most recently visited Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky last November. She headlined a pre-election rally at Northern Kentucky University for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, who would go on to lose the Kentucky race to incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Washington correspondent Deirdre Shesgreen contributed.