Who will be the next US President?

Who is winning the vote right now - and who will win out come Election Day? Will we see President Donald Trump or President Hillary Clinton? Based on data from RealClearPolitics, here are our latest predictions and an estimate of the final Electoral College result.

Will Hillary Clinton win?
Clinton has been ahead almost continuously in the Telegraph’s poll of polls, which takes an average of the last five published on RealClearPolitics.

Will Donald Trump win?
The presidential campaign has seen Donald Trump, once a Republican outsider, close the gap on Clinton before falling back after a series of controversies.

Trump has briefly pulled ahead a couple of times - first on 19 May. His polling threatened to consistently overtake Clinton in September, but fell back after a series of allegations.

How does the presidential election work?
Each of the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, has a set number of Electoral College votes to award a candidate, based on the number of members of Congress it has. This is roughly in line with population. Except in Maine and Nebraska, votes are on a winner-takes-all basis.

This system matters, as the popular vote is less important than the Electoral College vote. Clinton’s campaign should be buoyed by big Democratic states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, and these populous states could lead her to victory with their large number of electoral college votes.

The states to watch
Swing states – states that often switch between Democrat and Republican in different elections – are also important.
States like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia have the power to swing the election. So far, neither Trump nor Clinton has a significant lead in these crucial states.

Source: The Telegraph