Billionaire populist Donald Trump was
poised for a possible shock victory over Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s
historic US presidential election, as a string of early gains for the
Republican jolted world markets and stunned her supporters.
Clinton — the Democratic former first
lady, senator and secretary of state — began the day as the narrow
favorite to win the White House and become America’s first female
president.
But as polls closed in all but the
westernmost states, and media called state races one-by-one, giving the
key battleground state Ohio to her Republican rival, pollsters were
scrambling to update their forecasts and pointing to either a dead heat
or an upset.
World markets plunged as US observers
awaited results from key states Florida and Pennsylvania, with Mexico’s
peso plummeting in fear that Trump will make good on his vow to wall off
America’s neighbor to the south.
