Fading Hillary Clinton has to find spark after emails furore ahead of Democratic presidential debate

Hillary Clinton is the most famous woman in American politics, backed by the Democratic Party’s most powerful figures and richest donors. Why, then, is she dropping so dramatically in the polls as she heads into the party’s first presidential debate?

“At the start of the year she was the most admired person in public life,” her husband, former president Bill Clinton, said recently. “What happened? The presidential campaign happened.”

As her husband proudly points out, an annual Gallup poll named Hillary as the woman Americans admire most, just as she has been almost every year for more than two decades.

But that enduring admiration is either evaporating or irrelevant. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll found 59 per cent of likely Democratic voters were behind her in July. This month, that number dropped to 41 per cent.

The Democrat drawing the big crowds isn’t Clinton, but Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist who spent decades on the fringes of US public life. The Democrat generating the most suspense is Vice President Joe Biden, who is deciding whether he will run.

Biden’s aides have said he won’t be at the debate. But it is an opportunity for those who will — the total audience is almost certain to be in the millions.

It represents a chance for Clinton to change the conversation about her campaign, dominated for months by a controversy about her email.

Clinton used personal email addresses channelled through a privately-owned computer server during her four years as secretary of state during President Barack Obama’s first term.