US election: Trump on course for victory after winning Florida

Donald Trump won the key swing states of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio early this morning, giving him a clear path to the White House.

The Republican surpassed expectations and confounded pollsters in Florida, where Hillary Clinton had been expected to win following a surge in the Hispanic vote.

Hillary Clinton’s hopes of a swift victory faded as one of the most bitterly-contested elections in US history was this morning on a knife-edge.

Trump’s unexpected success in Florida meant that the US election was likely to come down to a small handful of swing states.

Mrs Clinton managed to win the battlegrounds of Virginia and Colorado, but she needed to take Michigan, Nevada, Iowa and Pennsylvania to revive her chances.

If Donald Trump wins this, it might be because for the final fortnight of the campaign he did as he was told, Rob Crilly writes.

He shut up and let all the attention focus on his rival. Hillary Clinton was not a good candidate. She may be a fine politician, but she represented all that Mr Trump wants to overturn.

She is a political insider, dogged by questions about whether she can be trusted, whether over her emails or the Clinton Foundation. But every time she was on the back foot, Mr Trump would give her a way out, deflecting attention away from her with one of his own missteps – often an easily avoidable Twitter tirade or public pronouncement.

Until the final couple of weeks that is, when he was reportedly deprived of his phone and reduced to dictating his tweets through aides who could vet their tone and content.

As a result, the last week was dominated by fresh questions about Mrs Clinton’s email server – thanks to FBI Director James Comey’s odd intervention – rather than Mr Trump’s behaviour. Was that the difference in the end?