By MJ Lee CNN National Politics Reporter
The Democratic National Committee will blitz the swing states with prominent Democrats to help Hillary Clinton make her case in the final month of the 2016 campaign, according to a preview of the plan shared with CNN.
To deliver what the DNC is billing its “closing argument” of the 2016 election, it will launch a surrogate-led bus tour through more than 20 states. It will begin Sunday in St. Louis, the site of the highly anticipated second debate between Clinton and Donald Trump.
The tour will aim to hammer home both President Barack Obama’s legacy as well as Clinton’s vision. Borrowing from the campaign slogans of both Obama and Clinton, the bus tour will be billed “Forward Together.”
While the DNC is still developing its full lineup of surrogates, celebrities and activists, civil rights leader and former presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill will hit the road on Sunday with DNC interim chair Donna Brazile.
The sheer number of well-known officials backing Clinton has given the Democratic nominee an important advantage over Trump, whom few of his party’s well-known politicians have fully embraced. This summer, the lineup of speakers and attendees at the Republican convention — and the decision by many prominent GOP officials to skip the event altogether — was in stark contrast to the Democratic gathering.
The DNC tour will feature two buses. One will travel around Midwestern states before driving to the West Coast, while the second bus will kick off in Ohio next week and eventually end up in Florida (the final number of states and trajectory of the buses are subject to change).
The Forward Together tour will focus its efforts on voter registration and early-voting, mirroring the Clinton campaign’s strategy in the homestretch of the election. Its primary targets will include middle-class families, women, millennial voters and minorities.
“We’re hitting the road and taking our message to as many cities and towns as we can, helping Democrats win up and down the ballot from the White House to the courthouse,” Brazile said in a statement.
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