There are only days to go before the US presidential election on 8 November. What are the latest polls saying?
For an election that is generating more passion on both sides than any in recent memory, pollsters and pundits are offering scant comfort to those seeking clarity about Tuesday’s result. Most outlets continue to predict victory for Hillary Clinton, but various models differ greatly in the certainty they award that outcome, and various polling averages disagree on the margin.
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight model gives Clinton a 65% chance of winning to Donald Trump’s 35%, while the New York Times sticks its neck out with an 86% chance of a Clinton presidency to 14% for Trump. RealClearPolitics’ polling average has Clinton ahead by 1.7 percentage points, while HuffPost Pollster’s average gives her a 5.5 percentage point lead.
How have these indicators changed since James Comey announced the FBI was looking into Clinton’s emails again?
Amid this dense electoral fog, what is clear is that Comey’s bombshell last Friday that the FBI is in a sense reviving its probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was US secretary of state has had a profound impact on the race. It allowed Trump, until then mired in his own controversy over his attitudes towards women, to swing the spotlight back onto his rival’s perceived untrustworthiness.
Probably as a result, the Republican nominee’s plummeting poll ratings have rallied, bringing them within the margin of error both on a national measure and in key states such as Florida, and even propelling him into the lead in the bellwether state of Ohio.
What’s happening now about the FBI investigation? Is there a timeframe?
FBI agents are racing through 650,000 emails reported to have been found on a laptop shared between Huma Abedin, vice-chair of Clinton’s campaign, and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner (he of the sexting scandals). It is not known how many of those emails came to or from Abedin, nor how many might have related to Clinton or might already have been examined by the Bureau.
If there are any new Clinton emails, it will take time to work out whether they contain classified material. So the search is unlikely to be completed by Tuesday, leaving this Sword of Damocles dangling over the Democratic presidential candidate as Americans go to the polls.
How is early voting looking?
More than 34 million Americans have already voted, surpassing the 32 million who cast their ballots early four years ago. Will this benefit Clinton or Trump? There’s no easy answer to that question, given variations both by state and electoral group. But there are clues. The good news for Clinton is that Latino turnout among early voters has increased dramatically over 2012, suggesting that the “sleeping giant” of the Hispanic vote might actually have been awoken this year by Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The bad news is that the African American turnout, such a vital element in the coalition built by Barack Obama in his two successful presidential runs, is relatively sluggish this time as is turnout for young voters. The fall in black turnout could be especially perilous for Clinton in swing states such as North Carolina, which has been identified by both candidates as a key target.
Can early voters change their minds, as Trump has urged, and have they been?
Trump is trying to use the furor over the FBI’s renewed interest in Clinton’s emails to persuade those early voters feeling buyer’s remorse to switch their preference. “Now that you see that Hillary was a big mistake, change your vote,” he said on Twitter, making the same appeal at a campaign stop this week in Wisconsin, one of six states that do actually allow early voters to change their minds (three times, in Wisconsin’s case). The others are Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York and Pennsylvania. Some early voters have made use of this facility, though probably not in numbers large enough to make a difference.
What’s the latest from Florida, and why is the Sunshine State so crucial?
Florida accounts for 29 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win, which puts it on a par with New York and means it has fewer than only California and Texas. Combine that with the state’s history of squeakily close presidential elections – Obama won here in 2012 by just 74,000 out of more than 8m votes – and you have the mother of all swing states.
All modeling suggests Trump must win Florida or kiss goodbye to the White House, although for Clinton it may not be quite so crucial. True to form, the race in Florida is looking too close to call. Clinton is counting on a large turnout of Democratic-leaning Puerto Ricans in central Florida, while Trump is bashing the theme of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s emails in the hope of riling Floridians into backing him.
How are voters reacting to Trump’s holding back of his tax returns?
Trump is the first presidential nominee of either main party since Watergate in 1972 to withhold his or her tax returns. His only return to have been made public, courtesy of a New York Times leak, suggests he may have avoided paying federal income tax for two decades. His reluctance is deeply unpopular, with polls showing that voters overwhelmingly think he should publish the records, as do two-thirds of Republican voters and almost half of Trump’s own supporters. But whether that translates into actual votes remains a moot point.
What about Trump’s other difficulty, with female voters?
It seems that Trump’s crude comments captured on a hot mic about making uninvited sexual advances to women might not have dissuaded many staunch conservative women voters from supporters him. But it has hurt him among white women voters generally who will play an important role in determining the outcome of the election. Ten recent polls show Clinton with an historically high 17-point advantage among women voters.
What last-minute plans are there for this weekend?
With everything to play for, both candidates will be clocking up serious air miles. Trump will be focusing on North Carolina on Saturday, seeking to repeat Mitt Romney’s victory there in 2012. Clinton will be with Katy Perry in Philadelphia on Saturday, where she will also attend a blockbuster eve-of-vote rally on Monday night alongside Bill and Chelsea Clinton and Barack and Michele Obama. Voters in key swing states will also be bombarded by TV and radio advertising, with Clinton hoping to exploit her vastly superior resources – she has $62m in her war-chest to Trump’s $16m.
After the vote, do Trump and Clinton head off to a beach somewhere to catch up on their sleep?
Sadly for them, no. For the lucky winner, the hard work will have only just begun. They must prepare for life in the White House, starting with the inauguration on 20 January. Clinton has entrusted the job of handling her transition into the world’s most powerful job to Obama’s former interior secretary Ken Salazar, while Trump’s team is led by New Jersey governor Chris Christie. And the sorry loser? Should that be Clinton, don’t expect this workaholic to be idle for long.
Having licked her wounds, there would be work to be done rebuilding the philanthropic Clinton Foundation, which has taken knocks during the campaign, as well as money to be made on the speaker circuit. A defeated Trump could be expected to be even busier, cranking up what many expect will be a far-right Trump TV network, which he’s already been road testing on Facebook.
(TheGuardian US )
