WASHINGTON (AP) – Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to deliver the first major speech of her Democratic presidential primary campaign in New York City next week. It’s a new phase of her campaign, one that adds some fanfare and policy specifics to a White House bid marked by small events in parts of the country since its launch.
Clinton will frame the themes of her candidacy in her June 13 address at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island, in view of U.N. headquarters, her campaign says. She’ll be joined by former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, who have stayed away from the campaign trail, going so far as to travel to Africa in the weeks that followed Clinton’s entry into the race in April.
Her team is billing the event as a campaign kickoff even though she already had one, lower key, at the start.
Clinton remains the dominant player in the Democratic primary field, despite the recent entries of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee plans to announce his presidential bid on Wednesday in Northern Virginia.
Much of the Democratic party has already coalesced around Clinton’s campaign, which has snatched up most of the party’s strongest donors and much of the party infrastructure. Even as Clinton makes overhauling the campaign finance system a major tenet of her bid, her team expects that her campaign and Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing her candidacy, will raise over $1 billion between both.