Chelsea Clinton campaigns for mom in Minnesota

Chelsea ClintonFeb3
Chelsea Clinton made a campaign stop on behalf of her mother, Hillary Clinton, Wednesday in Minneapolis. Tim Pugmire|MPR News

Chelsea Clinton is urging Minnesota Democrats to support her mother’s presidential campaign at the state’s precinct caucuses on March 1.

Clinton spoke at a Women for Hillary organizing event Wednesday at the Minneapolis home of DFL House Minority Leader Paul Thissen. It was one of three scheduled events in the area.

Fresh off her mother’s ever-so-narrow win over Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa, the younger Clinton took a veiled shot at her mother's Democratic rival.

“I think a real progressive is someone who has a record of making progress,” Clinton said.

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Clinton also criticized Republican presidential candidates for what she called “a normalization of hate speech” on the campaign trail.

“Somehow the individual examples of sexism and misogyny and racism and homophobia and Islamophobia and jingoism and anti-immigrant rhetoric have somehow made the rest of it seem less exceptional,” she said. “Whereas I take exception with all of it.”

DFL Governor Mark Dayton, a longtime supporter, told the crowd that he thinks Hillary Clinton is the hardest working political leader he’s ever seen and the most-qualified presidential candidate.

“There’s nobody in either field who even comes close,” Dayton said.

Dayton also said he thinks having Clinton at the top of the ticket in November would help DFL legislative candidates.

Minnesota Republicans have predicted that Clinton would have the opposite effect, particularly in rural areas.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are both scheduled to be in Minnesota on Feb. 12, making separate speeches at a DFL party fundraiser in St. Paul.