Hillary Clinton's outreach to young voters hit another snag on Wednesday, as press secretary Brian Fallon touted that while Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) is winning the youth vote, "their parents are probably voting for Hillary Clinton."
MSNBC's Chuck Todd asked Fallon about Clinton's remarks on Morning Joe the previous hour, when she effectively patronized Sanders' supporters as mere rebels for a cause. Asked why Sanders had been so successful in driving youth support, she said she understood it was "exciting to be, in effect, protesting."
"So is she being protested? This under-30 crowd is with Bernie out of a protest against Hillary Clinton?" Todd asked.
"No, I think that's a misinterpretation of what she said," Fallon said. "If you look at the breakdown of demographics right now, I bet a lot of the young people that are showing up to support Senator Sanders, their parents are probably voting for Hillary Clinton."
"Isn't that a little bit condescending?" NBC's Savannah Guthrie asked. "It makes it seem like, 'Oh, they're just rebelling. Those crazy kids.'"
"No, I don't think that's all there is to it," Fallon said. "We certainly recognize that he has spoken to young people, animated young people in large numbers. He turns out huge numbers of young people in his crowds. We want to win those people over."
Sanders again crushed Clinton with voters under 3o in his Tuesday victory in Wisconsin, taking 81 percent of that demographic. Sanders has taken 71 percent of that group during the entire 2016 primary process, while Clinton has countered with 65 percent of voters over 30.
"Even though they're not supporting her now, she's always going to be supporting them, and we think that as this contest moves along and then the party comes together after this process is done, that those young people will support Hillary Clinton in the general election, and some of these early, initial general-election polling bears that out," Fallon said.