US presidential poll: Trump up two points over Clinton

Washington: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has a two-point edge over Hillary Clinton in the latest survey of likely voters out on Tuesday, as the Democratic nominee`s post-convention lead has largely evaporated.

Trump and Clinton start the race to November 8, with the New York billionaire topping Clinton 45 to 43 per cent in the new survey, with Libertarian Gary Johnson standing at seven per cent among likely voters in this poll and the Green Party`s Jill Stein at just two per cent, CNN reported.

The topsy-turvy campaign for the presidency has seen both Clinton and Trump holding a significant lead at some point in the last two months, though Clinton has topped Trump more often than not.

Most recently, Clinton`s convention propelled her to an eight-point lead among registered voters in an early-August CNN/ORC Poll.

Clinton`s lead evaporated despite a challenging month for Trump, which saw an overhaul of his campaign staff, announcements of support for Clinton from several high-profile Republicans and criticism of his campaign strategy.

According to CNN, most voters expect to see Clinton prevail in November and 59 per cent think she will be the one to get to 270 electoral votes vs. 34 per cent who think Trump has the better shot at winning.

Neither major third party candidate appears to be making the gains necessary to reach the 15 per cent threshold set by the Commission on Presidential Debates, with just three weeks to go before the first debate on September 26.

The new poll finds the two major party candidates provoke large gaps by gender, age, race, education and partisanship.

Among those likely to turn out in the fall, both candidates have secured about the same share of their own partisans (92 per cent of Democrats back Clinton, 90 per cent of Republicans behind Trump) but independents give Trump an edge, 49 per cent say they would vote for him while just 29 per cent of independent voters back Clinton.

Another 16 per cent back Johnson and six per cent Stein.

On honesty, Clinton`s backers express greater skepticism about their candidate than do Trump`s supporters.

At least 94 per cent of Trump`s backers say he is more honest while just 70 per cent of those behind Clinton choose her, with 11 per cent saying Trump is more trustworthy and 17 per cent saying neither of them. 

Both candidates remain largely unliked, with majorities saying they have an unfavourable view of each candidate in the new poll.

The CNN/ORC Poll was conducted by telephone between September 1 and 4 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults.

The survey includes results among 886 registered voters and 786 likely voters. For results among registered or likely voters, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.