On Feb. 3, Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton sent her daughter, Chelsea Clinton to Minnesota for some last minute campaigning. With three meeting times and locations, I was lucky enough to catch her at the St. Anthony Main apartment buildings at the last event of her trip to Minnesota before heading back to New Hampshire for the primaries.

The gathering was centered around women in politics and women in positions of power. As the only woman candidate currently running, and only one of two women running at all, gaining the female vote has been a strategy for Clinton from the beginning.

Chelsea started off her talk discussing pro-choice policies. A common misconception, and one that I had during this speech, was what Clinton means when she says “pro-choice”. Pro-choice not only means a woman’s right to choose when it comes to reproductive rights, as I had believed, but it means so much more. While Clinton is pro-choice in reproductive terms, she is also pro-choice in who should be elected, economic well being, representation, and many other aspects of a person’s life.

“A woman’s right to choose. To broaden what we think of when we consider a woman’s right to choose, it’s so important to think about women’s health care more holistically, but also women’s economic agency and choice as well”, said Chelsea Clinton. She then went on to discuss maternity leave, raising the minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, business transparency, and health care. Aside from women’s rights, health care is another one of Clinton’s main platform points.

“[Hillary] created the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which today covers more than 8,000,000 low income American kids. That is real progress. We are going to be at least 90% health care insured in our country, and that is amazing!” said Clinton. Whether you agree with Obamacare or not, these facts and figures are what many of the people at the rally said that they loved Hillary for.  

As predicted, Clinton had a few words to say about the Republican side of the race. Never once naming names or bashing individuals, Clinton’s critique on the current happenings on the Republican side was well said and strong in her wording and her convictions.

“The third thing that I find deeply challenging is the country that is being talked about from the Republican side. A country in which hate speech is normalized and accepted. Somehow, the frequent repetition of speech that is sexsist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, islamaphobic, anti-immigrant, somehow, if they just keep saying it, it is supposed to become accepted,” said Clinton.

After her main speech on women and health care, Clinton left time for questions. As a candidate that has had the reputation of losing the millennial vote, I was surprised that the three questions answered were those of millennials, myself included. As a senior in high school, looking towards college, I asked about her mother’s plan to help the younger generation pay for higher education. It is known that Senator Bernie Sanders has made promises to make public universities free, something that had gained the attention and the vote of young people. Chelsea responded with a few answers. She outlined that while completely free college would destroy the system and not work economically, that in her mother’s plan is the foundations of a free and/or reduced higher education for families that economically qualify, more FAFSA money being allocated, and the introduction of a better student loan system with negotiable interest rates. This plan lines up with her platform of equality, while not overlapping with Senator Sander’s ideas of socialism in regards to free college and higher education.

As a still undecided voter, I am very glad that I had the opportunity to hear out one of the candidates platforms in a real, down to earth environment. With leftist policies, experience in the White House and in government, and a defined political and social platform, Hillary Clinton is still just as ever a contender in this crazy Presidential race.