ORLANDO — Of all the attacks that Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats have tried against Donald Trump since he captured the Republican presidential nomination, one has stood out for its emotional force and persuasive power: No one, it seems, can abide Trump’s mockery last year of a reporter’s physical disability.

And as Clinton strains to make a more forceful case for her own candidacy, after a summer focused largely on hammering Trump, her campaign believes that a focus on an often-overlooked constituency — voters with disabilities — can accomplish both goals at once.

On Wednesday, without mentioning the Trump episode, Clinton discussed her vision for an “inclusive economy” with expanded job opportunities for what she called “a group of Americans who are, too often, invisible, overlooked and undervalued — who have so much to offer, but are given far too few chances to prove it.”

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“That’s been true for a long time,” she added, “and we have to change it.”

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She also cited a recent Boston Globe profile of a woman with Down syndrome who retired after working 32 years at the McDonald’s in Needham.

In keeping with a recent campaign theme, she described how her career had informed her policy goals, from her work for people with disabilities during her time at the Children’s Defense Fund to her tenure as secretary of state, when she appointed the first special adviser for international disability rights.

“Whether they can participate in our economy and lead rich, full lives that are as healthy and productive as possible is a reflection on us as a country,” she said inside a gymnasium at an Orlando youth center.

Though Clinton made no mention of the moment last year when Trump mocked a New York Times reporter, Serge F. Kovaleski, who has a congenital joint condition that visibly limits the flexibility in his arms, she may not have had to: The incident has earned Trump some of his most blistering ratings in focus groups, and a pro-Clinton super PAC made it the centerpiece of an ad in June. (Trump has denied that he was mocking the reporter’s appearance, saying he did not even recall meeting him.)

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Clinton’s campaign plainly views the contrast as critical to its strategy for the remainder of the race, including the highly anticipated first debate with Trump Monday. Clinton has said often that she can handle the personal insults from him — but that what gets her piqued are attacks on groups that Trump has appeared to bully.

And she is in good company. “Making fun of that reporter was just not only in bad taste, it just demonstrated the character of him,” said Christine Griffin, a lawyer and disability policy advocate in Boston. “The disability community is very upset by that, but if you look at the poll numbers, so is the rest of society.”

People with disabilities make up a potentially potent political coalition: A study this month from two Rutgers University professors projected that more than 35 million people with disabilities would be eligible to vote this year — roughly one-sixth of the electorate. More than a quarter of the electorate either has a disability or shares a household with someone who does, the study estimated. And they are represented fairly equally in both parties. As the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska spoke often of championing children with special needs, noting her own child with Down syndrome.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president of RespectAbility, an advocacy group, said that the election had focused attention on issues affecting disabled voters as never before. She said that Trump’s behavior had served as a galvanizing force.

“I don’t think there’s a person with a disability on the planet who has never been made fun of,” said Mizrahi, who has dyslexia and is raising a child with physical disabilities. “Every person with a disability knows what it’s like to live with stigma.”

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Mizrahi also lamented that Trump had often “conflated the word ‘stupid’ with the word ‘loser,’ ” as she put it, warning that such thinking could hinder the job prospects of people with intellectual disabilities.

The event Wednesday also brought Clinton to a critical region of a major swing state. Her team has focused particular attention on the Orlando area’s sizable Puerto Rican population, especially as families relocate from the island amid a devastating debt crisis. Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, have attended a combined 15 events in Florida since the beginning of August.

Galvanizing the disabled as a voting bloc may require extra attention to the accessibility of polling places. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 sought to remove impediments, but advocates say many barriers remain. The National Disabilities Rights Network, for one, seeks to inspect polling locations in advance, but many are not open until Election Day, making that impossible.

Some of Clinton’s most affecting moments on the campaign trail have come when people have approached her on rope lines or during round-table discussions about their struggles caring for disabled family members. The campaign has turned some of Clinton’s backstage interactions, with a man who could hardly afford to care for his mother who had Alzheimer’s, and an Iowa mother suffering from breast cancer, into online ads, a series of which have been released in recent weeks.

And she has often turned to the subject spontaneously. In New Hampshire in February, she deviated from a planned focus on the economy to invoke the many disabled people she had met on the campaign trail who were seeking greater job opportunities.

“They’re an adult with autism, or they’re in a wheelchair and they want to work. They want to contribute,” she said. “What are we going to do?”