As Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump made their final campaign stop at about 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday, polls and pundits across the U.S. are calling the presidential election for Mrs. Clinton albeit with a slim margin of between two and five points.
With more than 376 polls from 43 polling agencies out there, many print and broadcast media organizations, including the BBC, choose to conduct their own or subscribe to poll of polls, that is, an average of select national polls.
BBC’s latest poll of polls, published about three hours after the candidates’ final campaign event, gives Mrs. Clinton 48 per cent chance of winning the election, Mr. Trump’s chance stands at 44 per cent. It analyzed more than 150 individual polls.
Real Clear Politics’ poll of polls shows Mrs. Clinton up by 2.5 points; she has 46.8 per cent chance of winning, compared to Mr. Trump’s 44.3 per cent. Even the ultra-conservative Fox News puts Mrs. Clinton chance of winning the election at 48 per cent and Donald Trump’s at 44 per cent.
Other national polls published yesterday (Monday) include:
CBS News poll: Hillary Clinton holding a 4-point lead over Republican Donald Trump with 45 per cent to his 41 per cent.
Washington Post/ABC poll: Mrs. Clinton has a 4 per cent lead with 47 per cent to Mr. Trump’s 43 per cent.
Bloomberg Politics-Selzer & Co national poll: Mrs. Clinton leads by 3 points with 44 per cent to Mr. Trump’s 41 per cent.
The most respected poll of polls, Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com puts Mrs. Clinton’s chances of winning at about 67 per cent and Mr. Trump at 33 per cent. It predicts that Mrs. Clinton will get 295 electoral college votes and Mr. Trump will get 243.
The U.S. presidential election is decided by the Electoral College system which is made up of 538 electoral votes. The winning candidate must secure at least 270 electoral votes.
Electoral votes are shared between the states according to the number of representatives and senators each state sends to Congress. The biggest states, California, New York, Texas and Pennsylvania have the highest number of delegates, 55, 31, 34 and 21 respectively. They have the most impact on the result of the presidential election. All but Texas traditionally vote Democrat.
Early voting started about two weeks ago in some states. November 8, is the last day to cast votes anywhere in the United States.
Pundits who are calling this year’s election for Mrs. Clinton base their conclusion on the Democratic candidate’s gains during early voting in states like Florida and Nevada that usually vote Republican. About 6.4 million people voted early in Florida with sharp increase in the number of Hispanic and African Americans voters, two segments of the population that have been at the receiving end of Donald Trump’s tirade on immigration and inner city violence.
Earlier polls in Florida also showed Mrs. Clinton in the lead; unconfirmed reports show that many Florida Republicans voted for her in the early vote.
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