Hillary Clinton looking beyond Trump to taking Republican control from House

 “We’re running a coordinated campaign, working hard with gubernatorial, Senate and House candidates,” said Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager.And for good reason.After a merciless two-year campaign, the next president will face the daunting task of governing a bitterly divided nation. If Clinton wins, her prospects for achieving her goals will be greatly diminished unless her victory is accompanied by major Democratic gains in Congress.WATCH: Clinton laughs, says Trump proved during debates she has ‘stamina to be president’
“We’ve got to do the hard and maybe most important work of healing, healing our country,” Clinton said Sunday at Union Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina.For Democrats, there’s another reason to try to run up the score. With Trump warning he may contest the race’s outcome if he loses, Clinton’s campaign is hoping for an overwhelming Democratic victory that would undermine any attempt by Trump to claim the election had been stolen from him.In a rare admission of fallibility by the typically boastful Trump, his campaign acknowledged he’s trailing Clinton as Election Day nears.“We are behind. She has some advantages,” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said. Still, she added, “We’re not giving up. We know we can win this.”READ MORE: Presidential Election 2016: Comparing the Trump and Clinton resumesConway laid out in granular detail Trump’s potential path to winning: victories in Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio, to start. If Trump prevents Arizona and Georgia from falling to Democrats and adds in some combination of Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, he could reach the 270 electoral votes needed, Conway said.It won’t be easy. A current Associated Press analysis of polling, demographic trends and other campaign data rates Virginia as solidly Democratic, while Colorado, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania are all leaning Democratic. Arizona, remarkably, is a toss-up.Campaigning Sunday in Florida, Trump called for voters to elect a Republican House and Senate that would “swiftly enact” his priorities, which include overhauling taxes, restoring higher spending on defense and repealing the Affordable Care Act.“We can enact our whole plan in the first 100 days — and we will,” Trump said.WATCH: ‘The system is totally rigged’: Trump continues attack on US electoral process
If Clinton wins, Democrats would need a net gain of four Senate seats to retake the majority. House control would be much harder, considering Republicans currently enjoy their largest House majority since 1931. Democrats would need a 30-seat gain, a feat they haven’t accomplished in roughly four decades.Clinton’s nascent focus on helping fellow Democrats comes with an inherent contradiction. For months, she deliberately avoided the strategy employed by other Democrats of trying to saddle all Republicans with an unpopular Trump. In August, she said Trump represented the “radical fringe,” rather than the mainstream of the Republican Party.“We have not run this campaign as a campaign against the GOP with the big broad brush — we’ve run it against Donald Trump,” Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, said in a weekend interview with The Associated Press.READ MORE: Hillary Clinton’s campaign considers ‘what if’ Donald Trump doesn’t concedePainting Trump as too extreme even for the GOP was a strategy intended to help Clinton win over voters who identify as Republicans but dislike Trump. Yet it’s been a major sore point for Democratic campaign groups, illustrated by an internal Democratic National Committee email in May that was hacked and later disclosed by WikiLeaks.“They don’t want us to tie Trump to other Republicans because they think it makes him look normal,” top DNC official Luis Miranda wrote under the subject line “Problem with HFA,” an acronym for Hillary For America.Andrea Bozek of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said Clinton’s last-minute push to aid Democrats was insufficient to make up for her party’s shortfalls in recruiting competitive candidates this year.“Democrats have relied on political gravity from the presidential race to carry them across the finish line,” Bozek said.WATCH: Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry knock on dorm rooms to campaign for Hillary Clinton
Indeed, as Clinton campaigned in North Carolina, where Democrats hope to unseat GOP Sen. Richard Burr, Clinton’s argument appeared to rest on the hopes that voters offended by Trump would vote against Burr, too. She said Democratic candidate and American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Deborah Ross knows that Trump “is wrong for America.”“Unlike her opponent, Deborah has never been afraid to stand up to Donald Trump,” Clinton said.Still, Clinton’s campaign said she remained intent on reaching out to GOP voters and was specifically targeting Republican politicians who haven’t denounced Trump. Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said the policies Clinton has prioritized for her first 100 days “are ones that Republicans should have every reason to work with us on.”Clinton isn’t the only Democrat putting a premium on down-ballot races. President Barack Obama flew Sunday to Nevada to campaign for the Democratic Senate candidate there before heading to California to raise money for House Democrats. He and Vice President Joe Biden have recorded ads, raised money and campaigned in person for dozens Democratic candidates this year.Mook spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Conway spoke on “Fox News Sunday” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”___Lederman reported from Washington. AP Polling Director Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report along with AP writers Jill Colvin in Naples, Florida, Kathleen Ronayne in Boston and Alan Suderman in Gainesville, Florida.