Nationally Hillary Clinton and her husband were engaged in a war of words with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, but at a town hall meeting inside of a historic church in Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday Clinton was focused on how to make hearing aids and college more affordable.
At Clinton's 19th New Hampshire town hall meeting this year she spoke for nearly an hour on a range of topics in front of 750 people who came out to see her amid the first winter storm of the season. At one point snow loudly wooshed off the roof of the Old South Church.
The main theme of the event was expanding upon Clinton's plan to cure Alzheimer's disease, the sixth leading cause of death nationally, in a decade.
"After talking to experts, the leading experts in our country — not just in Alzheimer's but in other neuro-degenerative diseases like Parkinson's — the overwhelming response was if we invested just $2 billion more a year, we would make tremendous progress, and we would have a real shot at understanding more about this disease, and trying to cure it," Clinton said.
The first question from the audience, however, was about the price of hearing aids. Clinton said those who cannot afford such devices begin to withdraw from community.
"I don't think hearing aids when you can't hear are a luxury. I think they are a necessity," Clinton said. She said that if elected president she would change Medicare's categorization of hearing aids from "optional" to "necessity."
Clinton took questions on a broad range of topics. A man from Liberia talked about the first female president elected in Africa. Others asked Clinton about everything from mental health issues to gender pay equality to the Paris climate change deal, which Clinton called "historic."
Meanwhile, Tuesday, the war of words with Trump continued, as the Republican frontrunner again reminded voters of Bill Clinton's past sexual misconduct.
"You look at whether it's Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones or many of them. That certainly will be fair game," Trump said on NBC's "TODAY" show.
Polls show Clinton trailing US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont among New Hampshire Democratic voters in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, now just over a month away.
Besides the Portsmouth event Clinton also held a town hall meeting in Berlin, N.H. Her campaign announced she will hold three more town hall-style campaign events on Sunday in New Hampshire. Former US president Bill Clinton will attend his first campaign event for his wife in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell. Click here to subscribe to his daily e-mail update on the 2016 campaign.