With 79 days until the presidential election, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has yet to to hold a press conference, something which hasn’t been done by a major-party candidate in at least the last 44 years.
News archives show that every single major-party presidential candidate has had a press conference by August 20 of an election year going back to at least 1972.
Presidential candidates Richard Nixon, George McGovern, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale, George H.W Bush, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Al Gore, George W. Bush, John Kerry, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney had all held press conferences by August 20 of their respective election years.
The Clinton campaign maintains that Hillary has had a press conference this year, pointing to an August 5 event before the black and Hispanic journalist associations. The limited questions came from pre-selected journalists, hardly qualifying as a press conference.
In late July, Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook was asked by a reporter when Hillary will have a press conference and he laughed nervously before turning over the question to campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. Fallon neglected to answer the question definitively and said Clinton ” “probably” will have “press conferences before the whole thing is over”
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Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party have both knocked Clinton for her lack of a press conference since December 5, 2015. “Despite her calls for the press to hold candidates accountable, there’s no doubt Hillary Clinton is desperate to avoid a taste of her own medicine,” Reince Priebus said in an August 5 statement.
In late June, Trump said, “I think it’s time for Hillary Clinton to do a news conference because it’s been almost a year now. And it would be interesting to see how she does.” His campaign sent out an email to reporters Friday titled “CLINTON IN HIDING: 259 DAYS SINCE LAST PRESS CONFERENCE.”
An April, 2000 Washington Post article says the RNC sent out an “Al Gore News Conference Watch” attacking the vice president for a lack of press conferences. Gore hadn’t held one in 46 days at the time and his press conference drought extended to 61 days.