Clinton and Democrats are looking past Trump, focusing on winning House and Senate seats

HillaryClinton says she doesn't"even think about responding" to Donald Trump anymore and would instead spend the final weeks on the road "emphasizing the importance of electing Democrats down the ballot."

The shifting political map has now freed her and her well-funded campaign to spend time and money helping other Democrats in competitive races tohelpthem seize the Senate and chip away at the Republican-controlled House.

"We're running a co-ordinated campaign, working hard with gubernatorial, Senate and House candidates," said Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager.

• How Trump's campaign could cost the Republicans their majority in Congress
• Republicans split over potential Trump effect on U.S. election outcome

And for good reason.

After a merciless two-year campaign, the next president will face the daunting task of governing a bitterly divided nation. If Clinton wins, her prospects for achieving her goals will be greatly diminished unless her victory is accompanied by major Democratic gains in Congress.

"We've got to do the hard and maybe most important work of healing, healing our country," Clinton said Sunday at Union Baptist Church in Durham, N.C.

BattlingTrump's 'rigged' electionclaims

For Democrats, there's another reason to try to run up the score. With Trump warning he may contest the race's outcome if he loses, Clinton's campaign is hoping for an overwhelming Democratic victory that would undermine any attempt by Trump to claim the election had been stolen from him.

If Clinton wins, Democrats would need a net gain of four Senate seats to retake the majority. House control would be much harder, considering Republicans currently enjoy their largest House majority since 1931. Democrats would need a 30-seat gain, a feat they haven't accomplished in roughly four decades.

• Trump's election-rigging charge is 'ridiculous,'Obamasays

In a rare admission of fallibility by the typically boastful Trump, his campaign acknowledged he's trailing Clinton as Nov. 8nears.

"We are behind. She has some advantages," Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said. Still, she added, "We're not giving up. We know we can win this."

Trump's slump in the polls come as sexual assault allegationscontinue to dog hiscampaign. On Sunday, one of his accusers, Jill Harth, said she'd countersueafter Trump saidhe'd sue all of his accusers once the election is over.

Harth and her attorney, Lisa Bloom, responded to Trump on Twitter with a statement sayingthey will"counter sue for the emotional hurt and lost income his attacks have caused" Harth.

Harth,a former Trump beauty pageant business associate, filed a $125million US lawsuit in 1997 against Trump alleging that on Jan. 24, 1993, at Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, Trump forcibly moved her to a bedroom, where she wassubjected to his"unwanted sexual advances."

Disputes overTrump strategy

Clinton's nascent focus on helping fellow Democrats comes with an inherent contradiction. For months, she deliberately avoided the strategy employed by other Democrats of trying to saddle all Republicans with an unpopular Trump.

Painting Trump as beyond the typical Republican was a strategy intended to help Clinton win over voters who identify as Republicans but dislike Trump. Yet it's been a major sore point for Democratic campaign groups, illustrated by an internal Democratic National Committee email in May that was hacked and later disclosed by WikiLeaks.

"They don't want us to tie Trump to other Republicans because they think it makes him look normal," top DNC official Luis Miranda wrote under the subject line "Problem with HFA," an acronym for Hillary For America.

Andrea Bozek of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republican'scampaign arm, said Clinton's last-minute push to aid Democrats was insufficient to make up for her party's shortfalls in recruiting competitive candidates this year.

"Democrats have relied on political gravity from the presidential race to carry them across the finish line," Bozek said.

Indeed, as Clinton campaigned in North Carolina, where Democrats hope to unseat Republican SenatorRichard Burr, Clinton's argument appeared to rest on the hopes that voters offended by Trump would vote against Burr, too. She said Democratic candidate and American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Deborah Ross knows that Trump "is wrong for America."

"Unlike her opponent, Debra has never been afraid to stand up to Donald Trump," Clinton said.

Obama campaigns forSenate seats

Clinton isn't the only Democrat putting a premium on down-ballot races. President BarackObama'srecent itinerary has focused on competitive White House states that also have close Senate races.

Obamaflew Sunday to Nevada to campaign for the Democratic Senate candidate there before heading to California to raise money for House Democrats. He and Vice-President Joe Biden have recorded ads, raised money and campaigned in person for dozens of Democratic candidates this year.

In Nevada, the president is trying to help Democrats retain the seat of the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid, who is serving out his fifth term before retiring.

The president was scheduled to speak at a rally at a Las Vegas-area high school for Clinton and Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto, a former state attorney general whose opponent is Republican Rep. Joe Heck.

Late Sunday, Obama planned to speak at an event in San Diego to benefit the organization that leads party efforts to electDemocrats to the House. His schedule included fundraisers in Los Angeles on Monday and Tuesday.

Polls indicate that the presidential and Senate races in Nevada are extremely tight. Reid's seat is considered the only one Republicans could reasonably flip to their side this election. Outside groups have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to influence the outcome.

Heck, now in his third House term, is trying to distance himself fromTrump. Two weeks ago, Heck said: "I cannot, in good conscience, continue to support him nor can I vote for Hillary Clinton."

But Obama is working to tie Republican candidates to Trump every chance he gets. "I mean, I know that some of them now are walking away. But why did it take you this long?" Obama said during a speech in Miami this past week when he criticized SenatorMarco Rubio.

• 'Stop whining' about U.S. elections being rigged,Obamatells Trump

Democrats need to pick up five seats to gain the majority in the Senate, or four if they hang onto control of the White House. The vice-president casts tie-breaking votes in the Senate.