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3 days to U.S vote; Trump closing in on Clinton
Democratic candidate and favourite Hillary Clinton has suffered a recent dip in the polls due to fresh FBI claims about emails. This has energised her Republican rival Donald Trump
In the closing stages to this amazing and tumultuous U.S campaign, the level of disagreement in the poll forecasts is a sign for the uncertainty among the so-far undecided 12 million-or-so voters that will be the “game changers” for the election in three days’ time.
The latest tumult was provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), James Comey, when he released an additional 650,000 e-mails belonging to a server of former Congressman, Anthony Weiner. The connection to Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton, is that Weiner is the estranged husband of a Hillary top aide, Huma Abedin. The e-mails may contain Weiner’s sexed-up correspondence to a 15 year-old girl.
A later FBI e-mail release, yet, concerns, Bill Clinton, Hillary’s husband, when he was president. Clinton pardoned businessman Marc Rich, in a questionable manner that may have breached legislative rules. This, too, could have a bearing on Hillary’s poll numbers.
Therein lie the impact which has already had on Clinton’s presidential chances. The effect has already turned off a significant attention of the American voters from Republican contender, Donald Trump’s lewd comments he made eleven years ago about women he fondled, to the “Corrupt Hillary”. The contest will likely be decided by the undecided voters and those who will turn off from the Libertarian contender, Gary Johnson and Green Party contestant, Jill Stein, and Evan Mullin.
The FBI-Weiner bombshell is going to be keenly felt in the swing states that now show a re-surgence for Trump in Georgia, Arizona and Ohio. There has also been an addition to these swing or battleground states with such states as: Florida, Nevada and North Carolina, in which there is a toss-up between the duo contenders.
So far, it appears Clinton has the edge in: Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nevada. In these states the Remington Research Group puts Hillary at a one point’s lead on average. Other organizations doing the national tracking poll that put Clinton in this bracket are: Times Picayune Lucid, Monmouth, USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times and ABC News/Washington Post.
In the intervening week since Hillary led Trump by between four to 12 points, the poll ratings for Hillary have, in those forecasts, fallen to a percentage point. And among the early voters, the indication is that, so far, Trump is leading in the voter count. Yet, Trump wants the early votes to be cancelled and the voters re-do the exercise. It may be an indication that the Trump Team is not having their numbers adding up in his favour.
The other big national tracking polls that put Clinton in a margin between three and six points above Trump are: Rasmussen Reports, NBC News/SurveyMonkey,
Gallup, CNN, RealClearPolitics and Ipsos.
Simulating the election outcome about 10,000 times and surveying more than 930
tracking polls, 538 puts Clinton chances at 48.7% against Trump’s 45%. Gary Johnson has 4.7%, while Evan Mullin and Jill Stein share the rest of 1.6%.
In the terms of the electoral vote in which a winning candidate has to get 270 electoral votes, Clinton has an edge with 299.8 votes as against Trump’s 237. Mullin has 1.1 votes, whereas both Stein and Mullin have none. Despite what these numbers show, the other deliverables indicate that the election, three days from now, is a long way from being in the bag for Clinton. Indeed, Trump could spring a surprising win for the White House.
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