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    Friday, April 26, 2024

    Bill and Hillary coming to Connecticut: Wallingford a stop on international speaking tour

    In this Nov. 8, 2016, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton greet supporters after voting in Chappaqua, N.Y. The Clintons announced Monday, Oct. 8, 2018, they will visit four cities in 2018 and nine in 2019 across North America in a series of conversations dubbed “An Evening with President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton." (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

    Bill and Hillary Clinton, who for 30 years lived at the fore of American politics, are setting off on a speaking tour spanning two countries and 13 cities — including Wallingford, where the couple will speak at the Toyota Oakdale Theatre on April 26.

    The tour, which kicks off Nov. 18 in Las Vegas, is billed as “An Evening with President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.” Live Nation, a concert and event promoter putting on the tour, promises “one-of-a-kind conversations” with the Clintons, who will relay “their stories from some of the most impactful moments in modern history.”

    The former president and secretary of state “provide a unique perspective on the past,” Live Nation says, “and remarkable insight into where we go from here.”

    Clinton fans and the merely curious can pay between $75 and $750 to see the Clintons speak at 7:30 p.m. on April 26. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. online.

    In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton captured 55 percent of Connecticut’s vote to President Donald Trump’s 41 percent. She lost, however, after Trump captured the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. His victory stunned the Clinton campaign and pundits across the political spectrum, laying bare a disconnect between the national Democratic Party and its onetime bedrock of working-class voters who had gravitated to Trump’s strain of America-first populism.

    “We recognize it’s been very difficult for Hillary Clinton and her supporters to accept they lost the election,” said J.R. Romano, chairman of the state Republican Party. “If people are willing to give up their hard-earned dollars to hear her speak, that’s America.”

    Hillary Clinton has returned to Connecticut a handful of times since 2016, signing copies of her book “What Happened” at a Brookfield Costco in 2017 and delivering Yale’s commencement address in May.

    Nick Balletto, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Connecticut voters repudiated Trump’s platform when they voted “overwhelmingly” for Clinton in 2016. He sought to tie the president — who is unpopular in Connecticut but increasingly popular among Republicans nationally — to the governor’s race, which pits Democrat Ned Lamont against Republican Bob Stefanowski.

    “I can’t speak for their decision to stop in Connecticut,” Balletto said of the Clintons, “but I do know that voters here are tired of Trump antics and of Bob Stefanowski’s support of them.”

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