Hillary, Trump in close race for White House

Voters in the United States of America (USA) will today go to the polls to decide who becomes their 45th President to manage the country for the next four years.

The election is described as the closest race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, candidates of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party respectively.

As of the time of going to press, polls put Hillary Clinton at 46.9 per cent and Donald Trumpt at 44.3 per cent, making it one of the hotly contested presidential polls in recent times.

The total number of Americans eligible to vote are 218,959,000. Out of this, the number of Americans registered to vote are 146,311,000.

The total number of Americans who voted in the 2012 presidential election was 126,144,000.  

Besides Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there are four other candidates contesting in the election.

Hillary Clinton, whose home state is New York, has Mr Tim Kaine as her running mate.

Donald Trump’s home state is also New York and he has Mr Mike Pence as running mate.

Mr Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party is the third candidate, whose home state is New Mexico, with Mr William Weld as his running mate.

Madam Jill Stein of the Green Party, and from Massachusetts, is the next candidate, with Mr Ajamu Baraka as her vice presidential nominee.

The fifth candidate is Mr Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party, who comes from Tennessee, with his vice presidential candidate as Mr Scott Bradley. 

Mr Evan McMullin is an independent candidate from Utah and he has Mr Mindy Finn as his running mate.

The US is a country of 50 states, five territories and one district, known as Washington D.C., but to most Americans and even concerned people outside America, the race is mainly between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

They believe that Americans are in for a long Election Night of waiting to see who emerges winner.

Whoever wins the race to the White House needs at least 270 out of the 538 electoral votes up for grabs.

As the results come in, they will form an electoral map that colours each state red for the Republicans and blue for the Democrats.

This shaded map is a fixture of American politics every four years, with news media and web sites fashioning them to give a real-time picture over the course of Election Night to illustrate how the candidates and parties are doing.

Florida

All eyes will be on Florida — an ethnically and politically mixed snapshot of America that accounts for a whopping 29 electoral votes. 

Obama won it narrowly in 2012. Back in 2000, in the historic disputed election that kept the nation on edge for days, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore there.

Much attention will also be paid to the small northeastern state of New Hampshire, which normally votes for Democrats but was seen as possibly up for grabs this time, and Pennsylvania, another former industrial powerhouse that normally leans Democratic and holds a prize of 20 electoral votes.

Many are of the view that this election campaign has so far been driven more by personality clashes than differences in policy. 

During the earlier campaign period, it came out that Hillary Clinton wanted to address income inequality through increased taxes on the wealthy. 

The victory parties

Both the Democratic and Republican parties have planned their victory parties.

Clinton's party will be at the Javits convention centre, with its glass ceilings.

The Trump party intends to celebrate theirs at the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan.

The midway point between the two celebrations will be at Ninth Avenue and 45th Street.