On the brink of the abyss

By D.R. | NEW YORK

AMERICA’s biggest political upset since at least 1948 appears to be under way, in the most consequential election of anyone’s lifetime. At 10:30pm Eastern time, Donald Trump is outperforming his polls in precisely the states he needs to win the Electoral College. He has already won Ohio, with an astonishingly large ten-point margin, enjoys a three-point lead in North Carolina with over 80%, and is nursing a slender but insurmountable advantage in Florida. Before the election, it was thought that Hillary Clinton did not need any of those states to win, thanks to a purportedly impregnable “firewall” running through Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and either New Hampshire or Nevada. But Mr Trump appears to be on the verge of crashing through it: he is up by 4.3 points in Michigan and 1.1 in Wisconsin, states where he never led a single credible poll, with 30% and 40% of the vote in. Pennsylvania too is in serious jeopardy for Mrs Clinton. It is extraordinarily unlikely that she could overcome the loss of even one of those states.

Mrs Clinton is running out of time to reverse this trend. The New York Times’s Upshot forecasting model now gives Mr Trump an 82% chance to win, and betting markets, which priced her chances around 90% early in the evening, have crashed to similar odds. Financial markets are in freefall: S&P 500 futures are down 3.7% and counting. Mrs Clinton is still favoured to lead the popular vote, but that is small consolation: her chances of winning the election are now roughly where Mr Trump’s were thought to be a few hours ago. It is not too late for a miracle, but it will take one to avert what is widely regarded as the biggest risk to American democratic institutions and global stability in modern memory.