As of Monday night all of the available US Presidential Election forecast models now give Hillary Clinton a high probability of winning on Tuesday, though they vary in the odds they give her.
HuffPost Pollster’s forecast model, for example, says Clinton has a 98% chance of winning. Others, like the New York Times’ Upshot and FiveThirtyEight, indicate a Clinton win with a lesser, but still high, certainty.
While a high probability of a Clinton victory doesn’t mean it will be a blowout, it seems like the Democrat candidate is holding strong ― not just in the polls but across several metrics.
LATEST US ELECTION ODDS FROM THE BOOKIES
Although the odds had narrowed in October, the latest figures from the bookies all have Clinton ahead in the US Presidential Election race.
As of Monday evening, Clinton was the clear favourite to win among all leading bookmakers, according to odds aggregator site oddschecker.com.
While it now looks somewhat comfortable for Clinton, it’s worth remembering that Donald Trump’s odds of winning were once quoted at 150/1.
Bookmakers William Hill had shortened Trump’s odds nine times since October 15, most recently from 2/1 (33% chance) to 7/4 (36%). Meanwhile Clinton’s odds had lengthened nine times.
It’s likely though that the Democrat candidate will go into polling day as a clear favourite at odds of 1/5 (83% chance), with William Hill, while Trump is offered at 7/2 (22%).
William Hill also revealed it took a bet of £150,000 on Clinton to win Monday morning.
Hills also revealed that 69% of the individual bets they have taken have been for Trump, but 74% of all the stake money is for Clinton.
“The campaign has mirrored Brexit in that there have been far more individual bets for the outsider, but the biggest bets have been on the favourite,” spokesman Graham Sharpe said.
CLINTON’S FAVOURABLE RATING IS BETTER THAN TRUMP’S
While both candidates are historically unpopular with a majority of Americans, Clinton is marginally more popular than GOP nominee Donald Trump ― a good sign for her with just two days to go.
HuffPost Pollster’s aggregate shows Clinton with a 42 percent favourable rating and a 56 percent unfavourable rating nationally, putting her at a net -14 points. Trump fares worse ― 39 percent favourable to 59 percent unfavourable, putting him at a net -20 points.
OBAMA’S HIGH RATING ARE GOOD NEWS FOR HILLARY
IT bodes well for a presidential candidate to have an incumbent president of the same party with high approval ratings in office while they’re running.
A study from the University of Virginia last year found that if the outgoing president has an approval rating over 50 percent, it is highly likely that the presidential candidate from his party will win the popular vote. While the correlation is not ironclad, historical precedent suggests it can be a predictive factor.
That’s good news for Clinton. President Barack Obama has a 52 percent approval rating, according to HuffPost Pollster, and has seen some of his highest approval ratings since his 2012 re-election in recent weeks. His favorability rating is high, too.
AMERICANS TRUST HILLARY MORE ON KEY ISSUES
The latest Pew Research Poll finds that voters have more trust in Clinton’s leadership than Trump’s across nearly all major issue areas.
Registered voters surveyed said they think Clinton will do a better job than Trump in making wise foreign policy decisions, selecting Supreme Court justices and dealing with race relations.
They also have more faith in Clinton when it comes to health care, immigration and managing the federal government.
Trump leads Clinton in voters’ trust in improving economic conditions and reducing special interest influence. The GOP nominee is also considered slightly more trustworthy than Clinton.
A recent analysis by HuffPost’s Samantha Neal found that Trump is the most distrusted Republican candidate in recent history on several key policy issues that GOP candidates have tended poll better on.
WHAT TIME WILL THE RESULT BE ANNOUNCED?
Ultimately, no one knows, but given when key states declare, US networks will likely call the result between 4am-6am on Wednesday morning, unless it’s another Bush-Gore election from 2000 when the result wasn’t called for days. It could be earlier if Trump’s support collapses or later if the race is closer than polls suggest.