‘If Hillary Clinton loses this election, it will be because of you and me’ – an exclusive extract from Huma Abedin’s memoir

The presidential candidate's right-hand woman was looking forward to the last push in the 2016 campaign, and her son starting school. Then her husband, Anthony Weiner, broke the news ...

Read an interview with Huma Abedin here

If there was a single night I truly believed Hillary Clinton would become president, it was 28 July 2016, when she took to the floor in her white Ralph Lauren suit to formally accept the nomination. As a blizzard of confetti and a hundred thousand red, white and blue balloons descended from the cavernous ceiling, the song Stronger Together, written and recorded for that evening, echoed through the hall, competing with the deafening sounds of fifty thousand supporters clapping and cheering for the woman in white on stage. Once HRC accepted the nomination, she began tossing giant blue balloons emblazoned with white stars out to the audience; to Tim Kaine, her running mate; to Chelsea, who had spoken so eloquently to introduce her mother; to her husband, who had given his own moving tribute to her on the second night of the convention and now looked exuberant as he waded through the waist-high drift of balloons that rained down.

Afterwards, our delegation of about 20 Clinton/Kaine family members, campaign staff and officials made its way through the balloons to the small backstage hold area, and Tim Kaine surprised me by leading the rest of our group in an impromptu singing of Happy Birthday. It was my 41st birthday. This new decade was turning out to be pretty extraordinary. Or so it seemed.