Democrats meet to come up with new strategy

That plan may not include Hillary Clinton, based on recent poll.

Democrats are still trying to figure out why they won’t still be in the White House a month from now.

Why Hillary Clinton didn’t win – though she took the popular vote by 2,865,075 votes, according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Some Western Wisconsin Democrats recently met to analyze why the November election turned out the way it did.

Alma State Senator Kathleen Vinehout believes the Clinton campaign didn’t try very hard to find new voters and that the Democratic party needs to find candidates who will inspire people to get to the polls.

“A big job for the Democrats to find candidates that are exciting and, not only motivate people who usually vote for them, but motivate people who’ve never voted,” Vineout said. “(And that’s) something that campaigns just don’t do. I think that’s a mistake.”

A recent poll relased by USA Today/Suffolk University on Wednesday found that 62 percent of Democrats and independents said that Clinton should not run for president again in 2020, while just 23 percent surveyed would be excited if she did. 

The newly released poll also found that people were excited to see either Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or Vice President Joe Biden run in 2020, when asked about each candidate individually. The poll also asked how excited they would be to see someone entirely knew and that came back at 66 percent. The nationwide poll of 626 registered voters who identified themselves as Democrats or independents, taken Wednesday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 points.

“The Republicans did an amazing job getting people motivated to vote for the first time,” Vineout said. “And that flies in the face of all conventional wisdom of campaigns.”

Vinehout noted that 12 percent of the people voting in Trempealeau County this year were new. First-timers made up 24 percent of the people voting in Whitehall, Wis.

She believes most of those voters were inspired to cast ballots for Donald Trump.