WASHINGTON: Does Donald Trump have enough "hidden" support among Americans reluctant to publicly express they will vote for him to win the presidency on Tuesday?
These undeclared backers might just be Trump's secret weapon -- potentially making the difference in an extremely close race against the Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Outside the White House, Thomas Hudson, a 64-year-old military veteran, reluctantly admits having cast an early vote for Trump. But he said he has a "guilty conscience" about it, whereas he usually feels "very proud" to vote for a Republican.
Like Hudson, 27 million other Americans have cast votes early, as allowed in many states.
Experts have been struggling to assess the true weight of these "invisible" voters, whose numbers are hard to measure precisely because they are shy about divulging their support for the controversial Manhattan billionaire.
The crucial question is whether they could generate an enormous electoral surprise akin to the shock Brexit vote for Britain to leave the European Union.
Political scientists describe this kind of surprise as the "Bradley Effect"; in 1982, Tom Bradley, a black candidate for the California governorship, lost the election although opinion polls had made him a clear favorite.
Many voters, it appeared, were reluctant to admit that they planned to vote for his white rival -- fearful of being accused of racism.
Among the potential "hidden" voters today are the 47 million white Americans without college degrees who stayed home on Election Day in 2012 but who have been assiduously courted by Trump, as David Wasserman notes on the FiveThirtyEight website, which offers election analysis.
By winning the confidence of a sizable share of this electorate, Trump could carry the election, said Wasserman, an editor with the Cook Political Report.
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