In addition to the mother of all US election questions — who will actually win this thing? — Australians are also asking whether Donald Trump is a Republican and what would happen if Hillary Clinton had to quit the game.
Google search data from last week reveals what Australians want to know about the presidential race, with 57 per cent of questions about Mr Trump, and 43 per cent relating to Mrs Clinton.
Here are the top questions Australians have been typing into Google — and their answers.
Trump trending questions
1. Who will win, Clinton or Trump?
Without a crystal ball we can only rely on polls, which show Mrs Clinton still holds a small lead over Mr Trump, according to the widely respected polling website Real Clear Politics.
Mrs Clinton currently leads Mr Trump by three points.
In mid-October she led in the same poll by 6 points, suggesting Republicans who were previously hesitant to support Mr Trump are finally embracing their candidate.
Victory will turn on the outcomes in a handful of swing states being heavily courted by the candidates in these final days.
Fivethirtyeight is today saying Mrs Clinton has a 69.4 per cent chance of winning the presidency.
2. What happens if Trump wins?
Many economists have warned of a sharp reaction on the financial market if Mr Trump wins.
A paper published this week by Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz (of the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, respectively) suggests that the US, UK and Asian share markets could fall by 10-15 per cent, and that Mexico’s peso would fall by 25 per cent, in the event of a Trump victory.
The Republican candidate’s attitude to longstanding US strategic alliances — with NATO partners in Europe as well as Japan and South Korea — also threatens to create much greater political uncertainty around the world.
Mr Trump’s policies would also significantly increase the US budget deficit by $US5.3 trillion over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Closer to home, one of Australia’s top economists, Saul Eslake, has predicted Australia will wear the collateral damage from a Trump-induced trade war between the US and China.
Mr Eslake said if the US were to increase import tariffs for China, and the Chinese economy retaliated, there would be weaker demand for agricultural, mining and food products Australia sells to China.
Last month, the Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe noted, “the possible election of President Trump wouldn’t be as benign an event”, as Brexit turned out to be.
3. What nationality is Donald Trump’s wife?
Donald Trump’s third wife, Melania (Knauss) Trump, was born in Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia).
She became a permanent resident of the US in 2001 and a citizen in 2006.
The former model met Mr Trump at a 1998 Fashion Week party in New York. They married in 2005 and have a 10-year-old son, Barron William Trump.
4. Is Trump winning?
Currently, Mr Trump is not ‘winning’ because the latest poll has Mrs Clinton ahead by three points. Whether the polls will get it right is yet to be seen.
5. Is Donald Trump Republican?
Indeed Mr Trump is a member of the GOP, however according to reports, he has changed his political party affiliations at least five times since the 80s.
He registered as a Republican in 1987 but in 1999 he switched to the Reform Party with the hope of standing as the party’s presidential nominee.
On failing that, he left the Reform Party in 2001, and for the next seven years was a Democrat.
But in 2008 he endorsed Republican presidential candidate John McCain and changed his party registration back to Republican in 2009.
In 2011, Mr Trump became an independent for five months before returning to the Republican Party.
Clinton trending questions
1. How could Hillary lose to Trump?
The “damn emails” have taken their toll on Mrs Clinton’s trust factor which will one of the biggest reasons voters turn away from her.
Voters take issue with her actions as US secretary of state.
Her tumultuous time as America’s top diplomat saw her hauled before Congress following fatal attacks on two US facilities in Benghazi.
Mrs Clinton’s handling of the situation was criticised in a report on the deadly 2012 assault, which accused her of underestimating and then misrepresenting the extremist threat in Libya.
2. What are the Clinton emails?
Mrs Clinton’s email use has been one of the biggest vulnerabilities in her campaign for the White House.
During her time as US secretary of state between 2009 and 2013, Mrs Clinton used an unauthorised private email server for her work.
The FBI spent around a year investigating this after it emerged there were classified government secrets in some of her emails.
They said although Mrs Clinton was “extremely careless” in her handling of sensitive information, charges against her were not appropriate.
This week the FBI announced the results of a second review it conducted after new emails were discovered, and stood by its initial conclusion that no charges are warranted.
3. What happens if Hillary drops out of race?
If Mrs Clinton were to throw the towel the US would be in unchartered territory — and with less than a day to go, it’s not going to happen.
The decision would have to be made by Mrs Clinton, and then the Democratic National Convention would have to elect a new candidate by a majority vote.
4. What is Clinton’s email problem?
See question 2.
5. What has Hillary Clinton done wrong?
This answer is entirely up to you.
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
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Top Comments
I wonder what would happen if someone else, lets say Donald Trump for arguments sake, was "extremely careless" with classified government documents? Do you think that they would face prosecution?