US race narrows as emails fallout damages Clinton
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POLLS showed the United States election tightening yesterday as Hillary Clinton campaigned in the crucial state of Florida, grappling with the fallout from the FBI director disclosing more of her emails were under review.
With the American elections now just over a week away, an ABC News/Washington Post poll put the former secretary of state just one point ahead of her bombastic Republican challenger Donald Trump, at 46-45 percent of likely voters in a four-way race.
In Florida, which is a must-win if Trump is to have any hope of victory, the tycoon overcame a one-point deficit to lead, according to a New York Times Upshot/Siena College Research Institute poll. It gave Trump 46 percent of likely voters compared to Clinton’s 42 percent, with former governor Gary Johnson dropping to 4 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein on 2 percent.
While the 69-year-old former first lady looking to make history as America’s first female commander-in-chief is still overwhelmingly expected to win the November 8 ballot, Trump was quick to crow yesterday.
“We are now leading in many polls, and many of these were taken before the criminal investigation announcement on Friday,” the 70-year-old real estate tycoon tweeted.
Clinton called the FBI director’s move “deeply troubling.”
FBI boss James Comey wrote to lawmakers last Friday, announcing that his agents were reviewing a newly discovered batch of emails, resurrecting an issue that the Clinton campaign thought was behind it.
“It was long on innuendo, short on facts, so we’re calling on Mr Comey to come forward and explain what’s at issue here,” Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta told CNN yesterday.
“It’s unprecedented and it is deeply troubling because voters deserve to get full and complete facts,” Clinton said in Florida on Saturday.
“So we’ve called on Director Comey to explain everything right away,” she added.
Leading Democratic senators have also written to Comey and his boss Attorney General Loretta Lynch, urging them to make clear by tonight, US time, whether the new emails were pertinent to the investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material that the FBI closed in July.
But the Trump campaign — itself reeling from scandal over alleged sexual misconduct accusations against the tycoon from at least 12 women — has been eager to exploit the FBI’s decision.
“You see the polls closing in states around the country,” his running mate Mike Pence told NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday.
“The American people are focusing on the big issues in this country. Frankly, I think they have come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton is a risky choice to be the next president.”
According to The New York Times, the FBI probe was renewed after agents seized a laptop used by Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin and her now estranged husband Anthony Weiner, a disgraced former congressman who resigned in 2011 after sending explicit online messages.
“This is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, and it’s everybody’s deepest hope that justice at last will be beautifully delivered,” Trump told a rally in Arizona on Saturday.
Clinton’s campaign has been overshadowed from the start by allegations she put US secrets at risk by using a private server based in her home for all email correspondence as secretary of state.
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