In crucial vote, Hillary Clinton fails to rally women

Hillary Clinton speaks at her primary night party in Hooksett, New Hampshire, on Tuesday. — AFP

Hillary Clinton made the prospect of her being elected the first woman US President a centrepiece of her campaign, then lost a critical nominating contest to a 74-year-old man in part because women preferred him.

NBC News exit polls showed Ms Clinton, a former secretary of state, Senator and First Lady, won 44 per cent of the women’s vote in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary to 55 per cent for her Democratic Party rival, Senator Bernie Sanders.

Young women contributed significantly to Ms Clinton’s loss, and the candidate acknowledged that she struggled with young voters.

“I know I have some work to do, particularly with young people,” Ms Clinton said during a concession speech. “Even if they are not supporting me now, I support them.”

With women over 45, Ms Clinton prevailed with 56 per cent of the vote, ABC News exit polls found, but Mr Sanders won 69 per cent among women under 45. Among women under 30, Mr Sanders won a staggering 82 per cent.

Unlike Barack Obama, who played down his African-American roots when elected the first black President eight years ago, in this election cycle Ms Clinton, 68, has emphasised the breakthrough a November 8 victory would represent for women.

At nearly every campaign stop in New Hampshire, Ms Clinton or a supporter emphasised the role she could play as the first woman in the White House while Mr Sanders galvanised young people with his promise to fix an economy he said was rigged in favour of the wealthy.

Ms Clinton said she was trying to break the “hardest, highest glass ceiling”. She campaigned alongside four women US Senators, New Hampshire governor Maggie Hassan and Lilly Ledbetter, the woman after whom an equal-pay law is named.

Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright reprised her line that “there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other” while introducing Ms Clinton at a rally on Saturday.

Ms Clinton told a young woman the same day that she has to walk a “narrower path” because she has “got to be aware of the fact that I’m trying to be the first woman President of the United States of America, and there has never been one before, and so people don’t have, you know, an image.”

The remarks by Ms Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state, and others by feminist icon Gloria Steinem were assailed as disparaging by young women supporters of Mr Sanders.

Ms Steinem had said young women were drawn to Mr Sanders because that was where the boys were.