How Clinton Can Win

Mariam Shakir, Staff WriterWith the 2016 presidential election only three weeks away, both candidates are doing everything they can to secure their seat in the White House. The campaigns against each other grow increasingly harsh and a good part of the final stage in the election process is already underway. Two of the three debates have already occurred, with Secretary Clinton declared the winner of both. On Friday, October 7, an Access Hollywood tape that showed Trump saying degrading comments about women released, garnering him negative media press and questions about it during the debate. Since then, a flurry of allegations of sexual assault from various women has been directed at him. The result for Clinton was a massive surge in polls.According to FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver's polls, Clinton is leading Trump 45.3% to 39.3%. Her lead carries over to key swing states. In Pennsylvania, a Bloomberg Politics Poll found Clinton leading Trump by 9 points, with 48% to his 39%. These numbers were reflected by FiveThirtyEight's poll, which showed Clinton at 49.8% and Trump at 42.6%. The website also gives her 90% chance of winning the state.Clinton holds the lead in all seven major swing states, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, and Ohio. However. Trump does hold a minor lead in more minor states, such as Arizona.Another problem that could affect Clinton's campaign is the seeming reluctance of her base to vote. Throughout her campaign she has constantly emphasized voting registration. According to a study by Pew Research Center, despite the fact that millennials, her main support base, compose 31 percent of the electorate, few are expected to actually vote. Only 46 percent voted in the 2012 election, compared to 72 percent of baby boomers, who form a large part of Trump's base. Millennials respond favorably to Clinton in national polls, but this means little if they do not vote for her. If Clinton's primary demographic does not vote on election day, there is a possibility she could lose the relatively large lead she currently has. Furthermore, if everyone in Trump's demographic votes, he could manage the lead.Despite Clinton's lead in the polls, she has not been without her share of issues. Around the same time as the release of the Access Hollywood Trump tape, Wikileaks released a series of campaign emails that cast suspicion on her integrity. Reports show her campaign's efforts to control the media, their methods of dealing with Bernie Sanders' rise in the polls during the primaries, and former president Bill Clinton's infidelities. One showed that the DNC chair leaked Bernie Sanders' campaign strategy plans to her and that most of her donations were from outside of the country. They also revealed that she earned 1.8 million from paid speeches to big banks. Another revelation was that Clinton planned from the beginning to hide her 33,000 missing emails on her private server. According to a transcript of an email, found on Conservative Outfitters, her campaign did "not plan to release anything publicly.A near constant stream of leaks and allegations have plagued Clinton since the start of her race, from emails to allegations of sexual assault on her husband. However, they have not affected her much. She still leads Trump in nearly every poll, was declared to have won two of the three debates, and has steady support from minorities and women. Clinton needs to continue her lead in the next debate, and continue what she has been doing: laying low and letting Trump's own words keep him out of the Oval Office.