Clinton leading Trump by eight points: Poll

In a latest poll, The Washington Post/ABC News said Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, now lead Trump and his running mate Mike Pence by 50 to 42 per cent among registered voters.c

Washington: Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, is leading her Republican rival Donald Trump by nine points, a latest opinion poll said on Sunday.

In a latest poll, The Washington Post/ABC News said Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, now lead Trump and his running mate Mike Pence by 50 to 42 per cent among registered voters.

This is double the four-digit lead Clinton had over Trump on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month.

The poll confirms that Clinton received a larger post- convention bounce than Trump did from his convention, said The Washington Post/ABC News.

However, a close confidant of Trump and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani argued that there is every opportunity for Trump to win the November general elections in about 90 days from now.

"First of all, 8 points down at this stage, of course you'd rather be ahead, but I remember George Bush the first being 16 points down to Dukakis going into September. There's certainly every opportunity for Trump to win this election," he told ABC News in an interview.

"I think Hillary's comments just don't get the same attention that Trump's do. For example, she lied to a Gold Star mother. She lied to Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, who was killed at Benghazi, because of her incompetence in failing to secure that mission," he said.

"And she lied to her on September 14th, 2012, right at the coffin. She said it was due to a video. So I think that's far more serious -- or at least it should get as much attention as was paid to, you know, the comments that were made about -about the Khan family," the former New York Mayor said.

Giuliani alleged that Trump and his campaign is not getting a fair treatment from the media and this is the reason why the Republican presidential nominee has said in the last few days that the US elections would be rigged.

"Do you believe this election could be rigged?" he was asked.

"I think what he's taking about is the very unfair media coverage that Republicans get. I know all of those of you in the media don't believe this but you really don't treat us the same way," Giuliani said.

"Hillary's situation in which the FBI found her to be extremely careless in handling top security information, my goodness, I wouldn't hire a person as an assistant US attorney if that was in their FBI background," he said.