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United States Presidential Election 2016

Who would you vote for in the US presidential elections?

  • Hillary Clinton

    Votes: 27 48.2%
  • Donald Trump

    Votes: 9 16.1%
  • Jill Stein

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Gary Johnson

    Votes: 4 7.1%
  • Another independent candidate

    Votes: 1 1.8%
  • I wouldn't vote for any of 'em

    Votes: 13 23.2%

  • Total voters
    56
  • Poll closed .
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Gutfright

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Yes folks, it's only 79 days until the seemingly interminable 2016 US presidential elections are finally over.

Who's going to win? Will it be Crooked Hillary, or will The Donald get his tiny, tiny hands on the nuclear button? Perhaps people will find the Republican and Democratic candidates so terrible that they elect a third party candidate to the White House?

For whom would you vote if you were eligible to participate in the US elections? Or would you take one look at the names on the ballot paper and curl up into a ball on the floor and gently weep for humanity?
 
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AlterEgo

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None of them. Trump and Clinton are idiots on both ends of the spectrum. All the others aren't electable.
 

DasLunatic

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Well, seeing as you can only choose between Trump and Clinton on the ballot, I have to choose Trump as he is the lesser of the two evils. Trump will still leave the US scarred, but four years of Clinton rule will kill it outright. Trump actually believes in his personal values, Hillary says what the electorate want to hear - look at her stance on gay marriage.

(I'm also too young to vote - I have to wait for two years yet...)
 

class387

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Well, seeing as you can only choose between Trump and Clinton on the ballot, I have to choose Trump as he is the lesser of the two evils. Trump will still leave the US scarred, but four years of Clinton rule will kill it outright. Trump actually believes in his personal values, Hillary says what the electorate want to hear - look at her stance on gay marriage.

(I'm also too young to vote - I have to wait for two years yet...)

Agreed. Couldn't have put it better.
 

Harbornite

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I'm surprised that a poll on this topic wasn't introduced sooner!

It's almost like choosing between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, I don't like neither massively but at least Clinton isn't racist or a threat to NATO and the economy.
 

backontrack

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Donald Trump is a Climate Change denier.

We cannot have someone who does not believe in Climate Change as President of the United States.

That is all.
 

me123

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Clinton wouldn't have been my top choice, but she is by far the better of the two main candidates. Trump is a moron and a genuine danger to international security. He still doesn't really have any real policies (although he goes into some depth about that bloody wall). He's appealing to the lunatic fringe of the Republicans (a party which are already on the lunatic fringe as far as I'm concerned). Trump clearly has narcissistic personality disorder, and that's not the kind of person I'd want in the White House.

Clinton may not be the best democratic candidate we've ever seen, and I don't think I'd have voted for her in a primary. She seems to be too close to the business community for my liking, and there are some legitimate criticisms about her term as US secretary of state. But she has a coherent platform, experience in office, and lots of policies that I do broadly agree with; including significant prison reform, improved access to higher education, actually doing something about climate change, improve access to healthcare, and improve working conditions and strengthen unions to name but some policies I agree with.

A Trump presidency would be a disaster, and as such I'd be willing to put aside my misgivings about Hillary and support her as the best candidate that's on offer. For all the legitimate criticisms that you can say about her, she's a much safer candidate than Drumpf.
 

Busaholic

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Donald Trump is a Climate Change denier.

We cannot have someone who does not believe in Climate Change as President of the United States.

That is all.

There'll be plenty of climate change should the unthinkable happen and Trump assumes power, but there won't be too many people left to monitor it.
 

Darandio

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There'll be plenty of climate change should the unthinkable happen and Trump assumes power, but there won't be too many people left to monitor it.

Exactly the same was said when 'Dubya' came to power.

We're still here........just.
 

Harbornite

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Citation needed, please.

Donald Trump would be the only national leader in the world to dismiss the science of climate change should he become president, putting him out of step even with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea.

The potential isolation of the US on climate change has been laid bare by a new Sierra Club report which found universal acceptance of climate science among the leaders of the 195 countries recognized by the US state department.


Close US allies such as Britain, Israel, Canada and France all have heads of government who have voiced their understanding that the world is warming primarily due to human activities.

Even totalitarian or undemocratic leaders accept mainstream climate science, with Assad calling for nations to “respond more effectively” to the issue and Kim supporting a tree-planting initiative to mitigate greenhouse gases. The Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, has labelled climate change a “major global challenge”.

By contrast, Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has called global warming “bull****” and a “hoax” that was “created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing noncompetitive”.

Trump has vowed to remove the US from the Paris climate accord, which was agreed by 195 countries last year in an attempt to curb planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. He has also threatened to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, which has come under sustained fire from Republicans over its role in Barack Obama’s emissions-cutting Clean Power Plan.

Donald Trump: I would end Paris climate deal

The Sierra Club report states that it is “essential that voters know that Donald Trump’s position on climate change is just another of his reckless, dangerous positions based more in reality TV than actual reality”. The environmental group said Trump’s stance would leave the US isolated on the world stage and undermine key alliances.

Trump’s pronouncements on climate change are also contrary to a large proportion of US voters, with recent Gallup polling showing a record number of Americans now see climate change as a threat to their way of life.


Climate change: the missing issue of the 2016 campaign

Separate research released on Tuesday by Yale University found that 45% of Americans are either “alarmed” or “concerned” about climate change, with levels of worry reaching levels not seen since 2008. Trump appears to be speaking for a small but notable minority, with Yale finding that 10% of Americans are “dismissive” of climate change as an issue.

Hillary Clinton is likely to assail Trump’s position on climate change during the presidential campaign, with the expected Democratic nominee handed a new party platform that calls for a carbon price and hefty support for solar and wind energy.

In his endorsement of Clinton on Tuesday, Senator Bernie Sanders said the former secretary of state understood the need to transition away from fossil fuels.

Sanders said that Trump, on the other hand, “chooses to reject science – something no presidential candidate should do.

“He believes that climate change is a hoax. In fact, he wants to expand the use of fossil fuel. That would be a disaster for our country and our planet.”



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/12/donald-trump-climate-change-science-sierra-club
 

DarloRich

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Well, seeing as you can only choose between Trump and Clinton on the ballot, I have to choose Trump as he is the lesser of the two evils. Trump will still leave the US scarred, but four years of Clinton rule will kill it outright. Trump actually believes in his personal values, Hillary says what the electorate want to hear - look at her stance on gay marriage.

(I'm also too young to vote - I have to wait for two years yet...)


Agreed. Couldn't have put it better.


is that for real? it cant be. What kind of world do you live in? Mind you being a kid (assuming 16 if you are 2 years off voting) it doesn't surprise me you have little experience of the real world!

The man is a dangerous simpleton who makes Dubya look like Albert Einstein! I like Brian Moores description of Donald Trump: A tango coloured sXXt gibbon!
 

61653 HTAFC

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I'm hoping that the majority of US Citizens will, like the French when it was Jacques Chirac versus Jean-Marie Le Pen, hold their noses and vote for the liar rather than the racist liar...
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Clinton may not be the best democratic candidate we've ever seen, and I don't think I'd have voted for her in a primary. She seems to be too close to the business community for my liking.

Closeness to the business community is not viewed as a particularly bad thing in America, especially within the Republican side of politics. unlike the opinions of many on this particular website to whom business is anathema.
 

DarloRich

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Closeness to the business community is not viewed as a particularly bad thing in America, especially within the Republican side of politics. unlike the opinions of many on this particular website to whom business is anathema.

Don't be silly, Business isn't an anathema - it is an essential part of the capitalist system.

What is an anathema are dodgy, bent, greedy, selfish people interested only in further feathering thier nests by screwing the people who work for them and absorbing none of the blame or damage when things go wrong.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Don't be silly, Business isn't an anathema - it is an essential part of the capitalist system.

What is an anathema are dodgy, bent, greedy, selfish people interested only in further feathering thier nests by screwing the people who work for them and absorbing none of the blame or damage when things go wrong.

That is just the sensible answer to my posting, as you see and understand how business works, unlike those whose eyes are clouded by the red haze of "true and untarnished" socialism and can see no reason for business NOT in state hands to exist.

"Screwing the people who work for them and absorbing none of the blame or damage when things go wrong" would have been well known as a mantra to Josef Stalin in the 1932/1933 forced famine that led to the deaths of millions in the Ukraine.
 

DarloRich

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That is just the sensible answer to my posting, as you see and understand how business works, unlike those whose eyes are clouded by the red haze of "true and untarnished" socialism and can see no reason for business NOT in state hands to exist.

I would prefer if the system were a bit fairer but it is better than the alterntive of bartering iron ingots!

"Screwing the people who work for them and absorbing none of the blame or damage when things go wrong" would have been well known as a mantra to Josef Stalin in the 1932/1933 forced famine that led to the deaths of millions in the Ukraine.

indeed - but Communists are lunatics!
 

Phil.

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I pity the U.S. electorate. They have the choice between a liar and a liar.
The Trump who - if he gets in - will discover that he's the president of a democracy and not a benign dictator.
The Clinton who's past will catch up with her as investigative journalists uncover all of her tawdry little secrets and lies. ("I arrived in Kosovo under gunfire"). Like Bliar she's a lawyer by trade therefore a trained liar.
 

phoenixcronin

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I would never ever vote for that bigoted buffoon Trump. He's stirring up racial anxiety to further his own campaign, and pandering to ignorant masses by telling them that all their problems are due to globalisation, China, NAFTA, immigrants etc, whilst at the same time outsourcing his own jobs and hiring illegal immigrant workers to build Trump Tower. What a clown!

Hillary's not perfect, but she'll largely be a continuation of Obama, albeit with probably stronger foreign policy, which I agree with. I've always thought that Obama's domestic policies where good, but that his foreign policy was weak, especially with regards to Syria. So I see Hillary as the best of both worlds, despite being a flawed candidate.
 
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chris89

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Voted none off above.

Although for Trump you at least know where he does stand.

Clinton is a mystery + The various investigations going on behind the scenes and these 'Secrets' being shared in emails and going by
bits of information released by Wiki Leaks.

Either way it will be interesting to see what happens.
 

DarloRich

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Voted none off above.

Although for Trump you at least know where he does stand.

Clinton is a mystery + The various investigations going on behind the scenes and these 'Secrets' being shared in emails and going by
bits of information released by Wiki Leaks.

Either way it will be interesting to see what happens.

no you don't know where he stands. He has changed his stance so many times in the past - what is to stop him again? he simply says whatever simpleton yanks want to hear and that changes from room to room!
 
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TheNewNo2

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Clinton. Not even a second's hestitation.

I was a Clinton supporter in 2008, until I heard Obama's speech after the Revenend Wright controversy unfolded, but Clinton is far and away the most qualified candidate for president in the history of the US.


Well, seeing as you can only choose between Trump and Clinton on the ballot, I have to choose Trump as he is the lesser of the two evils. Trump will still leave the US scarred, but four years of Clinton rule will kill it outright. Trump actually believes in his personal values, Hillary says what the electorate want to hear - look at her stance on gay marriage.

That is completely wrong. Trump has no personal values beyond "Trump is great". He has no consistent positions, and just says whatever comes into his head. He has threatened not to defend NATO members if they're attacked - that is dismantling the entire post-WW2 world security situation, because he thinks it counts as being tough. Trump doesn't have the ability to put aside personal slights - 20 years after a magazine article commented on his small hands, he still sends pictures of his hands to the author. He doesn't believe in a free press. Luckily currently all he can retaliate with is Twitter, but if he can be provoked so easily, it is not a great idea to give him unfettered access to nuclear weapons (and that is unfettered - the president can basically do whatever he wants with nukes, there's no oversight).

Trump doesn't listen to others (he has the best brain). He can't handle criticism. He can't handle being wrong. Even after being called out for lies, he keeps telling the same lies. He doesn't seem to believe in an independent judiciary, he has no idea about how the country actually works.


Clinton would be more or less Obama's third term. Is she a perfect candidate, no, but there's no doubt she could do the job competently and with a minimum of fuss. The Obama administration has had no major scandals (none that amounted to anything that is), and the major issues have been Republicans refusing to lift a finger to do serious legislating.



Exactly the same was said when 'Dubya' came to power.

We're still here........just.

George W Bush is generally considered one of the worst presidents in history, but I didn't ever have to worry that he would literally cause the end of the world. For all that's said about him, he seemed to be a decent person - misguided maybe, but he believed in public service. Moreover he listened to his advisors (too much one might say). That is not something you can say Trump would do.



Voted none off above.

Although for Trump you at least know where he does stand.

Clinton is a mystery + The various investigations going on behind the scenes and these 'Secrets' being shared in emails and going by bits of information released by Wiki Leaks.

Either way it will be interesting to see what happens.

Trump stands for Trump uber alles, nothing more. Clinton is not a mystery, she's been in the public spotlight for 30 years, and has spent that entire time having every aspect of her life dragged through the muck.
 

crehld

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Those hungry for informed electoral predictions might do well to look at the New York Times website. They collate polling data from a wide range of reputable sources. Their methodology for working out polling averages is probably the most robust out there. In particular they are careful to exclude polls financed by partisan sponsors and they give stronger weight to polls with a larger sample size. The current polls put Hilary on 43% and Trump on 38%. Of more interest, however, are their statistical models which account for the US's electoral college system, and highlight how US elections are won on just a couple of key states. They are currently predicting an 88% chance of a Clinton victory.

Of course polls can be wrong...
 

backontrack

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Those hungry for informed electoral predictions might do well to look at the New York Times website. They collate polling data from a wide range of reputable sources. Their methodology for working out polling averages is probably the most robust out there. In particular they are careful to exclude polls financed by partisan sponsors and they give stronger weight to polls with a larger sample size. The current polls put Hilary on 43% and Trump on 38%. Of more interest, however, are their statistical models which account for the US's electoral college system, and highlight how US elections are won on just a couple of key states. They are currently predicting an 88% chance of a Clinton victory.

Of course polls can be wrong...

Especially if they're British ones...
 

TheNewNo2

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Those hungry for informed electoral predictions might do well to look at the New York Times website. They collate polling data from a wide range of reputable sources. Their methodology for working out polling averages is probably the most robust out there. In particular they are careful to exclude polls financed by partisan sponsors and they give stronger weight to polls with a larger sample size. The current polls put Hilary on 43% and Trump on 38%. Of more interest, however, are their statistical models which account for the US's electoral college system, and highlight how US elections are won on just a couple of key states. They are currently predicting an 88% chance of a Clinton victory.

Of course polls can be wrong...


I'm personally a fan of FiveThirtyEight, named for the number of electoral college votes in the presidential election (because of course every single voter in the state can vote for Trump, but the electoral college can still decide to award their votes to Jill Stein).
 

crehld

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I'm personally a fan of FiveThirtyEight, named for the number of electoral college votes in the presidential election (because of course every single voter in the state can vote for Trump, but the electoral college can still decide to award their votes to Jill Stein).

I think the likelihood of an electoral college defying the popular vote in their state is incredibly slim. Indeed in some states it is explicitly outlawed.

But the unequal distribution of electoral college votes across states and the fact that electoral college votes are taken on a 'winner take all' basis in all but two states does mean one candidate can win the US-wide popular vote, but not win on electoral college votes as it did in 2000 (just in the UK a party may win the popular vote, but not secure a parliamentary majority - although in the US this arguably reinforces the federal nature of their political system). It also means a draw is entirely possible and it's left up to the House of Representatives in Congress.
 
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