As everyone should know by now, it’s a presidential election year. So far, the 2016 Presidential Election has gotten lots of attention and will continue to do so as the countdown to November the 8th continues. 

Currently Mrs. Hillary Clinton (Democrat) is leading in the polls against Mr. Donald J. Trump (Republican), Mr. Gary Johnson (Libertarian), and Mrs. Jill Stein (Green) in the polls. According to RealClearPolitics.com, Clinton leads Trump by 2.2 points in the polls including 3rd party candidates respectively. The overall trend throughout the year has been that Clinton will emerge as the victor in November. There are several reasons that this may or may not be the case.

Why do so many believe that a Clinton victory in November is coming? The easiest thing to point to is the poll numbers. The vast majority of polls have favored Clinton winning even since the beginning of the primaries in March. However these polls can change very quickly and turn in someone else’s favor, so one can’t rely completely on the polls.

Another one of Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities is his sometimes questionable rhetoric. A vast majority of people believe that at least one piece of Trump’s rhetoric has been inappropriate or out of line. This is however customary to any political candidate, so why does Mr. Trump stand out? The answer is in many people’s opinion it wasn’t just one or two or even three bad things that he has said, it’s a trove of questionable things he has said. This can clearly be seen by his historic unfavorability, 60.8% according to RealClearPolitics.com.

His rhetoric was even further questioned in early October when a tape of Trump on a Hollywood Access Bus in 2005 was released of him saying some very lewd things about women. Stating “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” implying that as a star he could sexually abuse women and do “anything.” Outrage from the tape was quick to come as well as an official apology by Trump. Despite the apology, many people still are very angry with him including the leaders in his own party. Several prominent Republicans including 2008 Republican nominee Senator John McCain withdrew their support of Trump over the tape that was released. Trump’s biggest loss was when Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis) said that he would no longer support Trump and advised fellow congressional members to do what was best for themselves. One could argue that the Republican Party has not been this divided since the 1912 Presidential election between Woodrow Wilson (Democrat), William Howard Taft (Republican POTUS), and Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive, former Republican POTUS.) Then Trump went and began to throw insults at the Republicans who have withdrawn their support of him splitting the party even more. It seems however that during the second debate and forward he has “stopped the bleeding” but according to many the damage has already been done. He still maintains a large base of enthusiastic supports but only time will tell if they will be able to propel him to a victory.

Mrs. Hillary Clinton on the other hand has some struggles of her own that she must overcome in order to secure a victory in November.  Perhaps her biggest vulnerability is the unwillingness of young voters, who overwhelmingly supported Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) in his presidential bid, to support her due to many factors.

Many are led to the assumption that the Democratic National Committee was biased and rigged the primaries in favor of Clinton. Also several email leaks from WikiLeaks show that DNC officials were conspiring against Sanders during the primaries and that Clinton’s campaign was in contact with the DNC. WikiLeaks has released yet another trove of DNC and Clinton emails some of which include her transcripts from paid Wall Street speeches. While there is some compromising information in there, including one statement that suggests Clinton believes that a politician should take a public and private stance on issues, one must take any leaks with a grain of salt.

Clinton’s scandals also continue to work against her, the most prominent being the Email Scandal. The Email Scandal was the term used for dealing with Clinton’s use of a private email account and server during her tenure as Secretary of State. It is important to note that during its investigation the FBI found significant evidence of negligence and some wrong doing but none that puts her in court. Recently, however, the FBI decided to reopen their probe into the Clinton emails due to the finding of potential Clinton emails that were believed to be deleted on the computer of Anthony Weiner. Due to this and many other scandals many voters continue to have a negative image of her due to the email scandal with a lot of Americans viewing her as untrustworthy. These factors will definitely play a role in her being the potential winner but with Trump’s unpredictability only time will tell.

As for the predictions, it seems that the Democrats have the race for the White House comfortably in their hands (as of now), as for the Senate, that’s up in the air for either party to take (currently in Republican hands, 54 Republican seats to 44 Democratic seats, 2 Independent), but the Republicans will likely retain their lead in the House.