Clinton leads Trump in two new opinion polls

Hillary Clinton has surged ahead of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race, two new opinion polls showed on Monday, as the Democratic presumptive nominee capitalised on the controversial Republican leader's recent campaign missteps.

A Washington Post/ABC News survey shows the former secretary of state ahead by 12 points, 51 per cent to 39 per cent.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, meanwhile, pegs Clinton's lead at 5 points, 46 per cent to 41 per cent.

Trump, 70, is emerging from a difficult phase in his campaign, including the firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, anemic fundraising and widespread blowback from his party over his labeling of an Indiana-born federal judge as "Mexican" and therefore biased in his Trump University legal proceedings.

The 12-point Clinton advantage would suggest those controversies have badly damaged Trump -- but the 5-point lead would indicate he had survived the last month largely unscathed, CNN said.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll found a number of troubling signs for Trump.

Of those polled, 61 per cent said 68-year-old Clinton is qualified to be president, while 64 per cent said Trump, a real estate billionaire, is not qualified.

By a better than two-to-one margin, voters said Clinton, not Trump, has a better personality and temperament to serve as their president.

While 50 per cent said the idea of Clinton as president makes them anxious, 70 per cent said the same of Trump.

And while Clinton's use of a private email server is damaging -- 56 per cent said they disapprove of how she's handling questions about it.

Trump has been more severely damaged by controversies surrounding him: 66 per cent say they think he is unfairly biased against minorities; 68 per cent said his attacks on the judge were racist; and 59 per cent disapprove of the way he has handled questions about Trump University.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found Clinton with huge leads among minorities -- besting Trump 87 per cent to 5 per cent among African-Americans and 69 per cent to 22 per cent with Latinos.

She leads with women, 52 per cent to 35 per cent, while Trump holds the edge among white voters at 49 per cent to 37 per cent; men, 48 per cent to 38 per cent; and independents, 40 per cent to 30 per cent.

"The fact that Donald Trump had a really bad period and he went down just a few points indicates that it will be difficult for either candidate to break out given the hard-set division in the electorate," Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who conducted the poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, told The Wall Street Journal.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll surveyed 1,001 adults between June 20-23 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters between June 19-23 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.