Clinton had held a lengthy double-digit lead over Trump, who was once a Republican outsider. This has been eroded by the populist appeal of Trump, although it has somewhat opened up again after she secured a pledge to work together from her Democrat rival, Senator Bernie Sanders.
Following a series of gaffes, the Republican nominee had seen Clinton get ahead in the polls again. However, his polling has again drawn close to Clinton's as the campaign reaches the milestone of 50 days before the election. Clinton has faced pressure over her health as she fainted in public after suffering from pneumonia.
A word of caution, however: polling so far away from the election is unlikely to be reflective of the final score. A lot can change between now and election day.
The New York Times has also worked out that, at the convention stage of all previous elections, a simple polling average across has differed from the final result by about nine percentage points. So, with the polls being so close, anything could still happen.
How does the presidential election work?
Each of the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, has a certain amount of electoral college votes to award a candidate, based on the number of members of Congress it has. This is roughly in line with each area's population. Except for Maine and Nebraska, the votes are given on a winner-takes-all basis.
This system matters, as the popular vote is less important than the electoral college vote. If Clinton's campaign is buoyed by big Democratic states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, these populous states could lead her to victory with their large number of electoral college votes.
For example, in 2008, Barack Obama won 53 per cent of the vote - but this led to 68 per cent of the electoral college vote. Such highly populated states played a large role when they backed the current president.
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