Culture

Yep, It’s Happening: Donald Trump Is Ahead In The US Presidential Election Race

Donald Trump is defying expectations and is doing... pretty bloody, depressingly well.

by Osman Faruqi  9 November 2016

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Okay before we get into gory, horrible details of what’s going on across the Pacific let’s get a few things straight. The election isn’t over yet. There’s still hours of counting to go and we probably won’t get a result till later tonight, Australian time.

But that said, Donald Trump is defying expectations and is doing… pretty bloody, depressingly well. The polls have now closed in most states and enough results have come through to indicate this election is going to be close.

Everything You Need To Know About Today’s Presidential Election But Were Afraid To Ask

To win the presidency a candidate needs to amass 270 electoral college votes. Currently Clinton is leading the electoral vote count, 190 to 171. But despite that lead, she’s actually not in a very strong position.

The whole election is going to come down a few key swing states like Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And Trump is doing better in those states than expected. He’s currently leading in Florida, Michigan and North Carolina and The New York Times is projecting him to pull ahead in Pennsylvania.

If Clinton loses those states it’s going to be very hard for her to get to magic number of 270. The New York Times is giving Trump a greater than 95 percent chance of winning the election, based on projected results. Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight is a bit more chill. They’re giving Trump a 58 per cent chance of winning.

Four Ways Australia’s Democracy Is So Much Better Than America’s

In other election news the Republicans have pretty much locked in a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. That means that even if Clinton wins she’s going to struggle to implement her agenda.

So yeah. It’s looking good for Trump and bad news for everyone else. Even Antony Green said so:

There’s still a while to go and there’s a chance the numbers could swing around as the count goes on, so don’t get too carried away yet.

We’re posting regular updates, as well as soothing gifs and videos, on our live blog so join us for the ride.