2016 US Presidential Election: Trends, Poll Tracker and Odds

In the United States of America there are 218,959,000 eligible voters, but only 66.82% of them have registered to vote. That number is significantly higher than the 57.61% of Americans that voted in the 2012 election for President Obama, and both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump are making their last efforts to appeal to swing voters in strategic states around the US.

This election is quite different than any other election before. The fact that social media has played a huge role in shaping the decisions made by the public is unique to this year. Both presidential candidates have unfortunately used this key piece of modern age communication to smear the other on a global scale, which has many voters not choosing based on the best person for the job, rather "the most popular kid on the school ground."

Perhaps the real problem is that both candidates have a huge number of skeletons in their respective closets and the media has been doing a precision job of making sure it is seen, and getting blown out of proportion in some cases. Take for example the Clinton email, which has been instrumental in Donald Trump's seemingly late surge in the polls over the last two days. The FBI reopened the case against Clinton's emails, but doing this just a week prior to the biggest election in the free world?

Trump on the other hand doesn't need any investigations for the media to find juicy topics to post about, as he usually says or posts things that are not characteristic of someone running for the White House. He has continued to lash out and lie about virtually every issue at hand and we all know about the voice recording proving just how disrespectful of women he really is despite his "nobody respects women more than me" campaign. Even more chilling is his alleged connection to the Russian government and that cyber-attacks are being prepared for ahead of November 8.

But these issues should not be the ones that decide the US Presidential election. Trump has not covered the real issues in some time. Clinton has also turned to bad-mouthing her opponent instead of talking about her vision.

What do the Polls Say?

Two days ahead of the election and the polls are in, but ever-changing. As of November 6 at 9:00 GMT, various polls trackers have posted the following. According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump has the lead amongst White Voters 46% to 35% for Clinton. Amongst Black voters it is Clinton with 83% of voters to Trump's 3%. Clinton also leads heavily amongst Hispanic voters at 58% to Trump's 20%. At USA Today, Clinton has the lead at 45% nationally to Trump's 42.9% with the remaining 4.7% and 2% going to Johnson and Stein.

What are the odds?

So just what are the online odds makers offering punters on the US election? Well, online sportsbooks like bet365 Sports, Clinton is the strong favorite at 1.28, while Trump is at 4.00. William Hill Sports, they also project a Clinton win at 1.28, but Trump is down to 3.60.