Democrat Hillary
Clinton and Republican Donald Trump face the judgment of the voters on Tuesday
as millions of Americans turn out on Election Day to pick the next U.S.
president and end a bruising campaign that polls said favored Clinton.
In a battle centered
largely on the character of the candidates, Clinton, 69, a former secretary of
state and first lady, and Trump, 70, a New York businessman, made their final,
fervent appeals to
supporters late on Monday to turn out to vote.
Their final week of
campaigning was a grinding series of get-out-the-vote rallies across
battleground states where the election is likely to be decided.
"We choose to
believe in a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America," Clinton said in
Philadelphia before a crowd of 33,000 - the biggest of her campaign.
She was joined by
Democratic President Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and Clinton's husband,
former President Bill Clinton
Trump made one of
his final appearances late on Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire, where polls
showed a tight race.
“Tomorrow, the
American working class will strike back,” Trump said. “It’s about time.”
He brought much of
his family on stage for his last rally in the state where he scored his first
victory in the Republican nomination fight.
FIRST WOMAN
PRESIDENT
Clinton went into
Election Day as the favorite to become the first U.S. woman president after
spending eight years in the White House as the first lady in the 1990s
A Reuters/Ipsos
States of the Nation poll gave Clinton a 90 percent chance of defeating Trump
and said she was on track to win 303 Electoral College votes out of 270 needed,
to Trump's 235.
But Trump advisers
said the level of his support was not apparent in the polling and believed the
New York businessman was in position for an upset victory along the lines of
the "Brexit" vote in June to pull Britain from the European Union.
"We have seen
enormous momentum," said deputy Trump campaign manager Dave Bossie.
Financial markets
brightened in reaction to the latest twists in what has been a volatile
presidential campaign. Global stock markets and the U.S. dollar surged, putting
them on track for their biggest gains in weeks.
Investors, who see
Clinton as a known quantity, were buoyed by an announcement on Sunday by FBI
Director James Comey that cleared Clinton of a cloud of controversy involving
her use of a private email server while President Barack Obama's secretary of state
from 2009 to 2013.
While opinion polls
showed a close race, but tilting toward Clinton, major bookmakers and online
exchanges were more confident of a Clinton victory. PredictIt put her chances
of capturing the White House at 81 percent.
Both Clinton and
Trump planned to vote on Tuesday - she in Chappaqua, New York, and he in
Manhattan. They were then to hold victory rallies about a mile apart in the
evening in New York City.
EYES ON FLORIDA,
NORTH CAROLINA
An early indicator
of the strength of each candidate could come in North Carolina and Florida, two
must-win states for Trump that have been the subject of frantic last-minute
efforts by both the Republican and Democratic campaigns.
Races in both those
states were shifting from favoring Clinton to being too close to call.
A strong vote for
Clinton could jeopardize Republican control of the U.S. Senate, as voters
choose 34 senators of the 100-member chamber. Democrats needed a net gain of
five seats to win control. The 435-seat House of Representatives was expected,
however, to remain in Republican hands.
Voters had to choose
between Clinton, who was vowed to largely continue the policies of Democrat
Obama, and Trump, who has never held public office and has positioned himself
as a change agent. Both were viewed unfavorably by majorities of voters.
The long-running
U.S. election campaign has been one of the most negative in American history
with each candidate accusing the other of lacking the character and judgment to
be president.
Trump, a former
reality TV star, reveled in the drama and seized the spotlight time and again
with provocative comments about Muslims and women, attacks against the
Republican establishment and bellicose appeals to build a wall along the U.S.
southern border with Mexico to stem illegal immigration.
But the spotlight
was not always kind to Trump, with the release of a 2005 video in which he
boasted about groping women damaging his campaign and leaving him on the
defensive for critical weeks.
Clinton, a former U.S.
senator with a penchant for secrecy, sustained damaging blows of her own linked
to her handling of classified information as the country's top diplomat. FBI
Director James Comey shook up the race and slowed her momentum with an Oct. 28
announcement the agency was reviewing newly discovered emails that might
pertain to her email practices.
On Sunday, Comey
told Congress that investigators had found no reason to change their July
finding that there was no criminal wrongdoing in Clinton's use of the server.
Reuters
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