US presidential election 2016: Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton, by the numbers

Number of days until this long national nightmare is over? Seven.

Number of campaign rallies? So, so many. ((Getty Images))

There’s only one number that really matters on the night of the US presidential election, and that’s 270: the number of electoral college votes a candidate needs to claim the White House. Pollsters give Hillary Clinton the better chance of victory over Donald Trump on 8 November, but here are some other key statistics to keep in mind as you watch the results roll in.

Number of presidential candidates: 5, or is it 26?

There are actually more than 25 people still running for president this year, but many are write-in candidates who do not appear on any state ballots.

There’s Joe Exotic, a gay Oklahoma country music singer who owns an exotic animal park. And there’s Zoltan Istvan, a former National Geographic journalist, science fiction author and founder of the Transhumanist party, who has argued that the president and other politicians ought to be replaced by robots.

For the sake of argument, though, let’s stick to the five candidates who could actually have an appreciable effect on the race: Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green Party nominee Jill Stein and Evan McMullin, an independent Republican who’s polling surprisingly well in Utah.

Number of dollars raised: More than $1.5bn, so far

The Clinton and Trump campaigns filed their last set of pre-election financial reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on 27 October. The Clinton campaign and Clinton-supporting Super PACS had collectively raised a total of $1,068m so far this election cycle, of which they had spent just under $900m. Trump’s campaign and Super PACs together raised less than half that amount: $512m, of which they have so far spent $430m.

Number of dollars donated by Sheldon Adelson: At least $35m

2016’s biggest individual political donor, Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, gave $93m to Mitt Romney’s election effort in 2012, and promised in May to top that by spending $100m on Trump’s White House bid. By last week he had ponied up a paltry $10m, apparently unwilling to give any more of his fortune to another presidential loser. On 31 October, however, Fox News reported that Adelson had just given a fresh $25m to an anti-Clinton Super-PAC, and was considering another $25m donation later in the week before election day.

Sheldon Adelson (AP)

Number of US daily newspaper endorsements: 215 for Clinton, 8 for Trump

Clinton has received 215 endorsements from daily newspapers in the US, including former Republican stalwarts such as the Arizona Republic and San Diego Union-Tribune. Trump has eight: the St Joseph News-Press; the Santa Barbara News-Press; the Waxahachie Daily Light; the Times-Gazette of Hillsboro, Ohio; the Antelope Valley Press of Palmdale, California; the News-Sentinel of Fort Wayne, Indiana; the Daily Reflector of Greenville, North Carolina and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is the only major newspaper in the nation to come out for the Republican. Oh, and it also happens to be owned by Sheldon Adelson.

Number of former Republican presidential nominees endorsing the 2016 Republican presidential nominee: 1

George W Bush and his father George HW Bush have both declined to endorse Trump, and 41 is said to be voting for Clinton. John McCain finally withdrew his support for the GOP nominee in October, following the release of the Access Hollywood “p***-grabber” tape. Mitt Romney is the standard-bearer for the party’s #NeverTrump faction. The one exception to this rule is former Senator Bob Dole, who was soundly defeated by Bill Clinton at the 1996 election. The 93-year-old said in July that he thought Trump would make “a great President”.

Bob Dole (Washington Post)

Number of campaign field offices: 696

Trump has been widely criticised for his failure to establish a serious ground game to get out the vote. And, as of 7 October, the Clinton campaign had more than twice as many field offices nationwide than the Trump campaign: 489 to 207. That’s a total of 696, which is still fewer combined than President Obama’s 790 field offices in 2012.

Number of people, places and things Donald Trump has insulted on Twitter: 282

According to an exhaustive analysis by the New York Times, “Crooked Hillary” is just one of 282 people, places and things the Republican nominee has scorned on Twitter since he launched his presidential campaign last summer, including the “absolutely disgraceful” US-Mexico border, “dopey” Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Trump’s “really bad” microphone at the first presidential debate and magician Penn Jillette, dismissed as a “goofball atheist”.

Number of campaign scandals: too many to count!

Trump University; the Trump Foundation; Trump’s tax returns; the “Mexican” judge; the “p****-grabber” tape; the allegations of actual, real-life p****-grabbing; the attacks on a gold star family; a disabled reporter and a former Miss Universe. Also, Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Number of genuine examples of large-scale voter fraud: ZERO!

Number of concession speeches: 0-1

Third-party candidates notwithstanding, we can expect somewhere between one and zero concession speeches on election night. Donald Trump has been vague on whether he will accept the results of the election, should he lose it, telling moderator Chris Wallace at the third presidential debate that he would “look at it at the time.”