Clinton says half of Trump’s supporters ‘fall in basket of deplorables’

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said that half of Donald Trump’s supporters fall into “the basket of deplorables”, meaning that they are either racist, homophobic, xenophobic, or sexist.

“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” she said at an LGBT fundraising event in New York. “Unfortunately there are people like that, and he has lifted them up.”

However, she said that the other half of his supporters were individuals who felt let down by the government and the economy and were desperate for change.

“They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. Those are people we have to understand and empathise with as well.”

Clinton’s campaign manager tweeted to say the “deplorables” she mentioned were the Alt-Right – a far-right group who critics accuse of being bigoted white nationalists.

However, Trump said that his rival’s comments were “insulting to millions of amazing, hard-working people”.

“I think it will cost her at the polls,” he said in a tweet.

Polls released earlier this week suggest that Trump is gaining ground on Clinton, and that the two are neck-and-neck in the key battleground states of Florida and Ohio.