On November 8, more than 100 million American voters will cast their ballots to elect the 45th US President. This is the biggest political event of the year in the US. The race to the White House has been dramatic until its last minute.
But, it has been not an easy race for Clinton, either, especially after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) decided to reopen investigations on her use of private emails. The consequences of FBI’s decision were huge. A poll by the ABC/Washington Post on November 1 showed 46% of potential voters supported the Republican candidate. From being left 12 points behind Clinton a week earlier, Trump has taken the fragile lead of 1 point ahead of Clinton.
Recent polls show that Donald Trump has narrowed gap with his rival and has the same rate of support with Clinton 45%/45%. But Clinton remains a more favorite candidate on betting websites with the bet at 4/11 compared to 2/11 for Trump.
But the US election system operates in a very different manner. The winning of a candidate doesn’t reflect the votes that he or she receives from the Congress’ members or support from the public. Each state among the 50 states in the US as well as Columbia have electors that each candidate needs to win votes from.
Each of the states casts as many electoral votes as the total number of Senators and House of Representatives in Congress. Most states except for Maine and Nebraska establish a winner-take-all system wherein the ticket that wins a plurality of votes wins all of that state's allocated electoral votes. This means winning in populous states like California, New York, Texas, and Florida is very important.
Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, who can win 270 electoral votes, will become the new US President.
