"If you look at history going back to 1948, the person who is leading the election cycle at this point has gone on to win the White House," PIMCO head of public policy Libby Cantrill says. And that's just one of three factors that suggests Trump's chances of a surprise victory are thin. "In 19 of the past 22 electoral cycles positive stock market returns have led to the party in power staying in power," the New York-based Cantrill says. While that may be confusing correlation with causation, it does "make intuitive sense", Cantrill says. "People vote with their pocket; so they go into the voting booth and if they feel like things are going pretty well in the economy, then they are more inclined to go for continuity in government." The third positive portent for Hillary Clinton is that the incumbent party's approval ratings also have a bearing on voters' decisions come election day, and President Obama is enjoying some of the highest approval ratings of his administration.

Dangerous horse But historical precedent right now is a dangerous horse to bet on. When Donald Trump around 15 months ago announced he would be running for a spot on the Republican presidential ticket, there were very few experts who predicted he would win the nomination. "What we have all learned is never to underestimate Donald trump," Ms Cantrill says. "Brexit is also fresh in people's minds, and if you look back to 2012 there were a lot of folks who thought Mitt Romney had a much higher chance than he ended up having, in terms of the margin with which President Obama beat him." Given this recent experience and a sense that this is an unusually volatile political environment in Western democracies, experts are wary of writing off Trump even this late in the game. For example, Citigroup analysts put the probability of a Clinton presidency at only 65 per cent. That seems very low odds when you consider the 60 years of experience highlighted above.

Part of the Citi experts' reticence is that the Republican nominee has been particularly effective in harnessing anger among blue-collar US workers, who have experienced stagnating real wages over many years and feel they have been left behind by globalisation and betrayed by their country's elites. "We are concerned whether conventional methods can accurately capture the anger and dissatisfaction of the anti-establishment voters who have been galvanised by Trump," the Citi analysts write. And Cantrill admits that Trump has "very much resonated" with working class Americans. "The issue with that is there is just not enough blue collar workers from a population perspective for him to win the general election based on just that support alone," she says. "So that's why you are seeing this pivot very recently to trying to broaden his demographic appeal by trying to talk to African Americans and Hispanics." "The question is whether it's too little, too late." Cantrill thinks the answer to that is probably "yes", but she can't dismiss what she describes as "an October surprise", whether it be a terrorist attack or stockmarket crash that could play in the favour of Trump.

The prospect of more of Clinton's emails being released shortly before the election could be part of that "October surprise". "If there are more damning emails that come, I think it would speak to her trustworthiness," Cantrill says. "She has pretty historically high negative ratings, but even higher untrustworthy ratings." The email saga is particularly relevant because there remains a cohort of the population that "amazingly" are still undecided, Cantrill says. "Could that be a tipping point for some of those folks?" Working for the one of the world's biggest bond fund managers, Cantrill is very attuned to what information can be gleaned from financial markets. And right now it looks like they are betting on a "status quo" result, with Hillary Clinton in the Whitehouse and most likely a split congress – with Democrats taking back the Senate and the Republicans keeping control of the House of Representatives. "That looks like the most likely scenario at this point from my perspective," Cantrill says. But she is optimistic that the gridlock that characterised the Obama administration may give little.

"I think there's a story that can be told where you could also see a more constructive government with Hillary Clinton in the White House, and [Republican] speaker Paul Ryan in the house." "Could they negotiate a deal in say infrastructure or corporate tax reform? Possibly. Are the markets underestimating that? Maybe." The odds of a Trump presidency may be waning by the day as we approach the November 8 election. But at a particularly volatile juncture in recent Western economic and democratic history, newspaper editors around the world will be holding their front pages.