New poll puts Hillary Clinton comfortably ahead of Donald Trump on eve of US presidential elections

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has a 65 per cent chance of winning the US presidential election, according to a leading opinion poll website which said her decline in poll numbers has levelled off and her lead has held steady over the past several days.

The website FiveThirtyEight said that Clinton has a 65.3 per cent chance of winning the presidency, according to its polls-only forecast, which is less than the 81 per cent had been forecast for her just before FBI Director James Comey had told Congress in October that he was reviewing additional emails pertinent to the case of Clinton’s email server.

While the percentage declined for Clinton it is still ahead of Trump’s who has a 34.6 per cent chance of winning the presidency.

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A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to clinch the White House and Clinton is expected to get 291.9 electoral votes as compared to 245.3 for Trump.

The analysis predicted that Clinton could get 48.3 per cent of the popular vote while Trump 45.4 per cent.

FiveThirtyEight founder and editor-in-chief Nate Silver said in a blog post that it is hard to say whether Clinton’s numbers will rebound now that Comey told Congress on Saturday that the emails on former Representative Anthony Weiner’s computer won’t change his earlier conclusions about Clinton.

Silver added that Trump should also get some credit for having been comparatively disciplined on the campaign trail, with the Republican nominee gaining about two points in national polls since October 28.

“Still, while Clinton’s chances were slightly declining already after she came off her post-debate peak, now the decline has leveled off, and her lead has held steady over the past several days,” he said.

Silver said it will be hard to say whether the latest Comey letter will help Clinton as any change will really come too late to be picked up on by most polls.

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