One of the first articles I ever wrote for the Odyssey was one about the election and how it was getting started. As I was writing about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I was in denial that neither of them actually had a chance to make it to the point to where they are the final two candidates. Sure, there is Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and others, our third-party candidates, but it is almost impossible that any of them would win the election.
We are a two-party nation, and since the government is split between republicans and democrats, the chances are very low for our third-party candidates. This election season, most of them fall far right of Trump's campaign.
We're less than two months away from Election Day 2016 and the polls are still changing drastically. In the last couple of weeks, Clinton has gone from being ahead in the polls, matched up with Trump, and behind. Clinton's health 'episode' during the 9/11 Memorial brought her down a few points, worrying voters of her health. As of September 16, the polls showed that more than half of the states favored Trump than Clinton.
As you might expect, the race between Trump and Clinton is divided, in part, by gender. Men seem to favor Trump and women seem to favor Clinton. Another statistic I thought was interesting is that college-aged women seem to be leaning towards Clinton because of her stance on being debt-free after college graduation.
According to Morning Consult, despite her health scare that surprised the voters, Clinton still maintains a 2% point lead ahead of Trump overall, followed by Trump, then Jill Stein, and finally, Gary Johnson.
This lead is small, though, and leaves room for Trump to jump ahead by getting the majority of the battleground states' voters. The same article from the Morning Consult says that voters consider the economy their top priority, followed by national security.
When it comes to voter turnout, according to an article in the Washington Post, the majority of Trump's supporters are closely paying attention to the race and plan on voting, up to 93%, whereas it's almost 40% less when it comes to Clinton's supporters, who say they aren't paying attention to the race as closely.
Is this a democrat vs. republican issue or a Clinton vs. Trump issue? Either way, the race is close and is changing constantly. If this tells us anything, it's that the voter turnout needs to actually be a turnout. An issue with a lot of younger voters, including myself, is that we aren't 100% educated in the race because we don't think it effects us as closely as it actually does. Even myself, as I'm writing this article, am not as educated in this race as I wish I were. I get all my information from the internet, which is the quickest way to learn anything you need to know about either candidate.
Where will we be on election day this year?
