WASHINGTON — It is nearly three months before the U.S. presidential election, but numerous analysts are now saying there is more than an 80 percent likelihood that Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. Secretary of State, will defeat Republican Donald Trump, the brash real estate tycoon running for his first elected office.
There are 12 weeks of campaigning remaining before the November 8 election to replace President Barack Obama when he leaves office next January, along with three scheduled debates between Clinton and Trump in September and October that could change the fortunes for either candidate.
But at the moment, the analysts see the race tipping heavily in Clinton’s favor, with her lead holding at a steady seven-percentage point advantage in national polling and growing margins in key state election battlegrounds where U.S. presidential elections are decided. The quadrennial U.S. presidential contests are not determined by the national popular vote, but rather on the outcome of the voting in the 50 states, with each state’s importance in the electoral college determined by its population and the number of senators and representatives it has in Congress.
In as many as 40 of the states, voters in election after election have sided with Democrats or Republicans, while the outcome in the other 10, where political allegiances are not as ingrained, has often switched from one party to the other depending who the candidates are or the political issues of the moment. READ MORE OF THIS REPORT
SOURCES: VOA News Online
