Opinion poll gives Clinton slim lead over Trump
NEW YORK: Democrat Hillary Clinton held a five percentage point lead over Republican rival Donald Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday, down only slightly since the FBI said last week it was reviewing new e-mails in its investigation of the former secretary of state.
Some 44percent of likely voters said they would support Clinton, while 39 percent said they would support Trump, according to the October 26-30 survey.
Clinton had held a 6-point advantage over Trump in the five-day tracking poll last Thursday.
Other polls have shown Clinton’s lead slipping more sharply.
Real Clear Politics, which averages the results of most major polls, showed that Clinton’s lead declined from 4.6 points last Friday to 2.5 points on Monday.
FBI director James Comey told Congress in a letter made public last Friday that his agency was looking into new e-mails that may be connected to Clinton, who had been probed by the FBI over her use of a private server and how she handled classified information while she was America’s top diplomat.
The FBI has revealed little about the new e-mails under investigation, except that they were uncovered during an unrelated investigation into the husband of a top Clinton aide.
In July, Comey concluded that Clinton and her staff were “extremely careless” with their handling of classified information, but that there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges. Comey told Congress: “We don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of e-mails.”
In a separate poll that included alternative-party candidates, 43percent supported Clinton, while 37percent supported Trump, 6 percent supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and 1 percent supported Jill Stein of the Green Party.
The polling determines likely voters according to a number of factors including voting history, registration status and stated intention to vote. It assumes that 60percent of eligible Americans will vote. The result of this year’s election will vary greatly depending on how many voters cast a ballot.
Currently, Clinton leads Trump in both high and low turnout scenarios, according to the latest poll.
Her advantage holds at 5 points if 55percent of eligible voters participate, and it rises to 6 points if 70 percent of Americans cast a ballot. – Reuters
CONTRARY to what some might think, US citizens do not elect their president through the popular ballot. Instead, voters select presidential electors, who in turn vote for the new president through what they call the Electoral College, with 538 members.
Presidential primary elections and caucuses have been taking place in 50 states, the DC and US territories. This is an indirect election where voters cast ballots for delegates to a political party’s nominating convention, which in turn elects its party’s presidential nominee.
This is how Donald Trump was elected the Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton the nominee for the Democrats.
Trump’s catchphrase, “Making America great again”, has struck a chord with ordinary Americans who fear their jobs are going to Mexico and China, both of which are attracting US investors and markets. “They use our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China,” Trump remonstrates.
He talks of thousands of jobs leaving rundown Michigan, Indianapolis and Ohio, and of devastation in places such as New England and Pennsylvania, where manufacture is down by 30 to 50 percent. Trump promises to reverse this trend by dropping corporate taxes from 35 to 15 percent.
The Republican candidate has been drawing broad support on the basis of his appeal to the anger and frustration of broad layers of workers and middle-class whites whose living standards have been declining.
The renowned American scholar Noam Chomsky says the rise of Trump in US politics is, in part, fuelled by deeply rooted fear and hopelessness among poorly educated whites. In other words, the support of this pompous business mogul comes from the economically disadvantaged seeking to fulfil the so-called American dream. He is capitalising on their fears about the perceived decline of white dominance.
“He’s evidently appealing to their deep feelings of anger, fear, frustration and hopelessness. It evokes the memories of the rise of European fascism. Signs that are familiar,” adds Chomsky.
Trump started his career in 1973 when he was sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination because he would not rent apartments in one of his real estate to African-Americans. Actually, he was sued twice.
As for his patriotic posture, the truth is that Trump has off-shored most of his jobs. The products he manufactures and markets are produced outside the US. He has been closing factories, moving them across the border or down south, and then moving them back to Michigan so that workers’ wages could be lowered. He epitomises the very “problem” that he is raging about.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is promising to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. This means higher incomes with new jobs coming, mainly from small business. She pledged to make the economy fairer by promising a higher minimum wage and equal pay for women. She wants to see more companies creating more profit and sharing it.
Under her leadership, we are told there will be paid family leave, earned sick days, affordable child care and debt-free college. She says she is going to do it by having the wealthy pay their fair share and closing corporate loopholes. But Clinton’s image has taken a number of dents by the e-mail allegations that she used a private server for “classified” e-mails that she deleted. There are six laws that she might have violated by her privatisation and destruction of State Department records.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says it is reopening its investigation into Clinton’s e-mail server. The FBI director said the agency had uncovered new e-mails related to a comprehensive probe into whether Clinton had mishandled classified information.
Clinton has also been accused of getting into bed with the corporate world.
Thus, she was reportedly paid R9.3 million for three speeches to Goldman Sachs in which she explained why the rich should rule.
In fact, Hillary and Bill Clinton have accumulated R2bn in speaking fees since they left the White House. These were payment for services rendered to the US corporates.
Trump himself is struggling to handle the fallout from the release of a 2005 tape showing him bragging about groping women.
Since the video’s release, about a dozen women have accused him of groping them or kissing them without their consent.
The US presidential battle hardly dealt with imperative foreign issues, most of the time and space were sidetracked towards contestants’ sexual antics or their e-mails.
Yet Trump is on record as saying he sees no point in the US entering into conflict with Russia now that the Soviet camp has collapsed.
He considers Nato to be outmoded, so there is no need for the US to play global sheriff, financing the defence of her allies.
One has to compare this with Clinton’s provocative talk about Russian President Putin, calling him “the new Hitler”.
She has also been accusing the Russians of colluding with Trump in hacking her e-mails and releasing them to the WikiLeaks.
In her speech at Goldman Sachs, she warned Beijing that “US would ring China with missile defences and put more of its fleet into the area”. Clinton also told China that the US has as much claim to the Pacific as China, given that US forces had “liberated” it in the Second World War.
Regarding the ongoing carnage in Syria, there is more or less agreement between Trump and Clinton. She is in favour of US military intervention with a no-fly zone in Syria, while Trump’s running mate said America needs to “exercise strong leadership by establishing safe zones with Arab partners”.
None of them refers to the recent comments by General Joseph Dunford, chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told a congressional hearing that establishing the so-called safe or no-fly zones would mean a US war with both Syria and Russia. None of them talks of the full consequences on the actions they are both advocating.
American people are hardly told that such invasions have cost them 5 to 6 trillion dollars since 9/11, which comes to about R690 000 per American household.
Tens of thousands of US soldiers are dead or have been maimed, while over a million civilians have been killed in Iraq alone. In addition, we see massive refugee migration, which is tearing apart the Middle East and Europe, and sparking even bigger terrorist threats.
Clinton was the driving force behind the military intervention in Libya and Syria, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and seven million internally displaced. Clinton was also involved in toppling a democratically elected government in Honduras.
Trump in the Oval Office may be a frightening prospect to many. But it would be equally naive to think that the world would be safer place with Clinton in the White House.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that many Americans feel the choice they have is between an evil and a lesser evil. It is between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
This is to be expected in a country that is controlled by latter-day aristocrats – the one percent wealthiest. That is why former US president Jimmy Carter said America is now “an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery”.
Visram is a Tanzanian freelance writer