Politics & Government

Watch: President Obama's Rally for Hillary Clinton in Orlando, Florida

President Barack Obama took the stage in Orlando to show his support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

ORLANDO, FL — With early voting well underway in much of Florida and Election Day just around the corner, President Barack Obama made a second Sunshine State appearance to stump on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

Obama took the stage at Orlando’s University of Central Florida late Friday afternoon. He discussed his former secretary of state’s plans for the economy while encouraging people to take advantage of early voting, according to the Clinton campaign.

Obama’s appearance comes as Clinton jockeys to win Florida, a critical battleground state. Her poll numbers in the state and nationally have bounced up and down over the past few days as WikiLeaks continues to dump emails allegedly written by or sent to Clinton campaign staffers.

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Among the revelations to come out of the WikiLeaks dumps is a $12 million donation from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI to the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton campaign has denounced the WikiLeaks email release, saying the hack represents an effort by the Russian government to influence the American election.

The veracity of the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state has also been called into question. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton, had funneled thousands of dollars into the state Senate campaign of Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. The deputy director was responsible for providing oversight on the investigation related to Hillary Clinton’s possible mishandling of classified information on her email server.

Find out what's happening in Lakelandfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

FBI director James Comey announced in July that his agency was recommending no criminal charges against Clinton. The FBI found no clear evidence of intention to violate laws related to the handing of classified information, Comey said. Even so, “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Comey announced another investigation in Clinton-related emails on Friday, just 11 days before the election.

Trump has also been fending off scandals over the past few weeks. His numbers in national polls dropped sharply following the three presidential debates and the release of a video that showed him making lewd comments about women. Although the video was about a decade old, the New York businessman has also been fending off allegations from women who say he touched them inappropriately.

Clinton was ahead in national polling Friday by 5.2 percentage points, down from Monday’s 6.1 percent, according to RealClear Politics. Her lead in the Sunshine State had dropped to 1.6 percent Friday, the website reported.

Obama is expected to took the stage at 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28. Watch the rally below:

Photo via WhiteHouse.gov

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