Barring accidents, or what would be one of the most unexpected upsets in US electoral history, President Clinton is set to be returned tomorrow for a second term in the White House.
It has been a strangely lifeless campaign, as is clearly reflected in the high level of public apathy. The Republican candidate, Mr Bob Dole, failed to find a strong focus with which to challenge Mr Clinton, with the result that much of the final pre electoral solution from whether the Democrats will have a runaway victory in the congressional, as well as the presidential, voting.
Mr Clinton's strong position is a tribute to his capacity and will for political survival, as well as to the manner in which he has reinvented and repositioned himself and his policies in the last two years.
This was certainly not to have been expected after the Republican triumph in the mid term elections of 1994 on a wave of neo conservative radicalism. Mr Clinton then faced the daunting prospect of managing relations with a hostile House and Senate, whose majority was, moreover, determined to make the most of the series of scandals that surrounded him. It was a challenge which played to his strongest political instincts and skills. He proceeded to co opt Republican policies on such issues as law and order and welfare, to combine these with renewed commitments on education and affirmative action and then to exploit Republican divisions and misjudgments with masterly timing - notably during the stand off over last year's budget. He had established sufficient credibility on domestic and international economic policy from the very beginning of his term of office to be able to capitalise on the buoyant US performance in recent years.
All this has stood to him well in this year's campaign. He has been able to use the classical strengths of incumbency and to distance himself from the allegations of scandal and character failings thrown up by his opponents. He has been helped by the Republicans' failure to resolve competing approaches to many of the issues within their own ranks. Most important, he has appeared the better choice than Mr Dole on most of the everyday issues that concern the US electorate, not least by the sheer professionalism of his campaigning.
Although foreign policy has not played a large part in the hustings, Mr Clinton has an improving record to offer - on Bosnia, international economic policy, the Middle East, nuclear diplomacy and Northern Ireland - that Mr Dole was unable to criticise effectively.
Much of the interest of tomorrow's voting concerns the outcome of the congressional elections. A Democratic victory would spare the President the awkward investigations over the Whitewater affairs that could return to dog him through the next four years, even though they have not proved to be of sufficient concern to move the electorate in this campaign. Mr Clinton's very success in the last two years has, however, been predicated so much on dealing with a Republican Congress that a Democratic victory could, by a nice irony, deprive him of his new political identity.
Assuming he wins, much of the interest over the medium to long term will concern how the President forges this identity with domestic and international challenges. This country has been fortunate to have had his close and sustained interest in the Northern Ireland peace process, which will lead many Irish Americans to vote for him tomorrow.