At long last, Americans decide between Clinton and Trump
By Steve Holland
NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump
face the judgment of the voters on Tuesday as millions of Americans turn
out on Election Day to pick the next U.S. president and end a bruising
campaign that polls said favored Clinton.
In
a battle centered largely on the character of the candidates, Clinton,
69, a former secretary of state and first lady, and Trump, 70, a New
York businessman, made their final, fervent appeals to supporters late
on Monday to turn out to vote.
Their
final week of campaigning was a grinding series of get-out-the-vote
rallies across battleground states where the election is likely to be
decided.
"We
choose to believe in a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America,"
Clinton said in Philadelphia before a crowd of 33,000 - the biggest of
her campaign.
She was joined by Democratic President Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton
Trump made one of his final appearances late on Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire, where polls showed a tight race.
“Tomorrow, the American working class will strike back,” Trump said. “It’s about time.”
He
brought much of his family on stage for his last rally in the state
where he scored his first victory in the Republican nomination fight.
FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT
Clinton
went into Election Day as the favorite to become the first U.S. woman
president after spending eight years in the White House as the first
lady in the 1990s.
A
Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation poll gave Clinton a 90 percent
chance of defeating Trump and said she was on track to win 303 Electoral
College votes out of 270 needed, to Trump's 235.
But
Trump advisers said the level of his support was not apparent in the
polling and believed the New York businessman was in position for an
upset victory along the lines of the "Brexit" vote in June to pull
Britain from the European Union.
"We have seen enormous momentum," said deputy Trump campaign manager Dave Bossie.
Financial
markets brightened in reaction to the latest twists in what has been a
volatile presidential campaign. Global stock markets and the U.S. dollar
surged, putting them on track for their biggest gains in weeks.
Investors,
who see Clinton as a known quantity, were buoyed by an announcement on
Sunday by FBI Director James Comey that cleared Clinton of a cloud of
controversy involving her use of a private email server while President
Barack Obama's secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
While
opinion polls showed a close race, but tilting toward Clinton, major
bookmakers and online exchanges were more confident of a Clinton
victory. PredictIt put her chances of capturing the White House at 81
percent.
Both
Clinton and Trump planned to vote on Tuesday - she in Chappaqua, New
York, and he in Manhattan. They were then to hold victory rallies about a
mile apart in the evening in New York City.
EYES ON FLORIDA, NORTH CAROLINA
An
early indicator of the strength of each candidate could come in North
Carolina and Florida, two must-win states for Trump that have been the
subject of frantic last-minute efforts by both the Republican and
Democratic campaigns.
Races in both those states were shifting from favoring Clinton to being too close to call.
A
strong vote for Clinton could jeopardize Republican control of the U.S.
Senate, as voters choose 34 senators of the 100-member chamber.
Democrats needed a net gain of five seats to win control. The 435-seat
House of Representatives was expected, however, to remain in Republican
hands.
Voters
had to choose between Clinton, who was vowed to largely continue the
policies of Democrat Obama, and Trump, who has never held public office
and has positioned himself as a change agent. Both were viewed
unfavorably by majorities of voters.
The
long-running U.S. election campaign has been one of the most negative
in American history with each candidate accusing the other of lacking
the character and judgment to be president.
Trump,
a former reality TV star, reveled in the drama and seized the spotlight
time and again with provocative comments about Muslims and women,
attacks against the Republican establishment and bellicose appeals to
build a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico to stem illegal
immigration.
But
the spotlight was not always kind to Trump, with the release of a 2005
video in which he boasted about groping women damaging his campaign and
leaving him on the defensive for critical weeks.
Clinton,
a former U.S. senator with a penchant for secrecy, sustained damaging
blows of her own linked to her handling of classified information as the
country's top diplomat. FBI Director James Comey shook up the race and
slowed her momentum with an Oct. 28 announcement the agency was
reviewing newly discovered emails that might pertain to her email
practices.
On
Sunday, Comey told Congress that investigators had found no reason to
change their July finding that there was no criminal wrongdoing in
Clinton's use of the server.
No comments:
Post a Comment