In the coming weeks, Hillary Rodham Clinton will stop delivering paid speeches. She will embark on an unofficial listening tour to gather ideas from the business community, union leaders and others. And she will seek advice from such far-flung advisers as an ad man in Austin, Tex., behind the iconic “Don’t Mess With Texas” campaign and a leading strategist at a Boston-based public affairs consulting firm with ties to the Kennedys.
The Democratic debacle in Tuesday’s midterm elections has put new urgency on Mrs. Clinton’s efforts to create a blueprint for a 2016 presidential candidacy, including exploring White Plains as a possible national headquarters and digesting exit polls to determine what the midterm results could mean for the presidential electoral map.
A number of advisers saw only upside for Mrs. Clinton in the party’s midterm defeats. Before then, opinions had been mixed about when she should form an exploratory committee, the first step toward declaring a presidential candidacy, with some urging her to delay it until late spring.
But over the past few days, a consensus formed among those close to Mrs. Clinton that it is time to accelerate her schedule: She faces pressure to resurrect the Democratic Party, and she is already being scrutinized as the party’s presumptive nominee, so advisers see little reason to delay.
No action will be taken before the Dec. 6 runoff in Louisiana between Senator Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat and a Clinton friend, and her Republican challenger, Rep. Bill Cassidy, putting the likely date for the establishing an exploratory committee in early next year, said several Clinton advisers who insisted on anonymity in discussing private conversations.
Donors, meanwhile, have already started to discuss a Clinton candidacy, at times barely veiling a giddy excitement.
On Wednesday evening, Ready for Hillary, a “super PAC” that supports her candidacy, sent a fund-raising email. “Now more than ever we need to show Hillary that we’re ready for her to get in this race,” the plea for donations read. “America needs Hillary’s leadership.”
In many ways, Tuesday’s election results clear a path for Mrs. Clinton. The lopsided outcome and conservative tilt makes it less likely she would face an insurgent challenger from the left.
And a Republican-led Senate creates a handy foil for her to run against: Rather than the delicate task of trying to draw a stark contrast with an unpopular president in whose administration she served, her loyalists say, Mrs. Clinton can instead present herself as a pragmatic alternative to what they predict will be an obstructionist Republican Congress.
"Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and their allies in the House" will be "pushing Republican leadership hard," said Geoff Garin, a pollster who succeeded Mark Penn as chief strategist for Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign. "When that happens it will give Hillary Clinton or whoever the Democratic nominee is a better platform to run."
But before any campaigning begins, Mrs. Clinton will first embark on a listening tour that echoes what she did first as a candidate for the Senate in New York and then as a freshman senator, gathering ideas and advice from a cross-section of influential people about their concerns.
“She’ll slow down a bit, get off the radar, get ready for this, and ready includes being a good freshman senator, with a legal pad and lots of conversations,” said one person with direct knowledge of her plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been made public.
Meanwhile, the people around Mrs. Clinton will speed up their efforts to vet potential campaign aides, casually connect with donors and begin to help Mrs. Clinton craft a clearer message, especially on the economy. Although Mrs. Clinton’s midterm campaigning schedule took her to Iowa, Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina and other important 2016 states, she did not spend much time getting to know the specific concerns of voters, something she would need to do ahead of a presidential campaign.
Exit polls from Tuesday are being pored over for signs about what voters’ opinions could mean for Mrs. Clinton’s message and approach. Midterm voters expressed frustration with government, but also economic unease.
“One of the questions for 2016 is: Which of those will 2016 be about? Will it be about the size and cost of government, or will it be about who the economy works for?” Mr. Garin asked. “If it’s an election about who the economy works for, then the Democratic nominee will be in a much better position to win,” he added.
To help Mrs. Clinton do just that, several advisers are already being eyed for senior positions in a potential 2016 campaign. People close to Mrs. Clinton often point to a potential campaign manager in Robby Mook, a 34-year-old operative who managed the campaign for the Clintons’ longtime money man, Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia. In addition to her small personal staff, Mrs. Clinton also receives advice from Minyon Moore, a savvy former White House adviser who works at the Dewey Square Group, a Boston-based consultancy with an office in Washington. A spokeswoman for Dewey Square said the firm has no formal relationship with Mrs. Clinton.
Ms. Moore is close to other potential campaign aides like Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and who previously worked at Dewey Square.
Other advisers are more far-flung. Roy Spence, the Austin advertising executive who helped develop the state’s ubiquitous “Don’t Mess with Texas” anti-littering campaign and who has known the Clintons for decades, is offering advice about image and messaging.
Mrs. Clinton turned to Sean Wilentz, a Princeton professor and presidential historian, for advice on shaping her stump speech ahead of Tuesday’s election. During the 2008 Democratic primary, Professor Wilentz, a longtime Clinton defender, accused Barack Obama’s campaign of “the most outrageous deployment of racial politics since the Willie Horton ad campaign in 1988.”
(A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton declined to comment, and Mr. Spence and Professor Wilentz did not respond to requests for comment.)
During the midterm campaign, Mrs. Clinton raised more than $10 million for Democrats, and she and former President Bill Clinton attended at least 75 events on behalf of more than 30 candidates, building and rebuilding the relationships she and her husband are known for.
The Clintons worked hard on behalf of Alison Lundergan Grimes, a candidate for Senate in Kentucky, and Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and were somewhat startled by their double-digit losses. But it was former Gov. Charlie Crist’s loss to Gov. Rick Scott of Florida that carried the biggest implications for a 2016 presidential campaign, as the Clintons had hoped for Democratic leadership in a critical battleground state.
Other Democratic defeats had a silver lining. The Maryland governor’s race in which a Republican, Larry Hogan, defeated the Democrat, Anthony G. Brown, 51.6 percent to 46.9 percent, for example, diminished the likelihood that former Gov. Martin O’Malley, another Democrat, could emerge as a serious primary challenge to Mrs. Clinton.
As the outline for a campaign is drawn, Mrs. Clinton’s supporters describe what they envision as a “New Clinton Map” that they believe could create a winning coalition for 2016, drawing on the white working-class women who have long supported Mrs. Clinton and the young voters and African-Americans who helped elect Mr. Obama.