Trump chipping away at Hillary's lead, says new poll

The US presidential election slated to be held in November appears to have tightened as a series of latest national polls projected that Republican Donald Trump has gained some ground in the last week against Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party.

In RealClearPolitics' average of polls, Clinton had a lead of nearly nine percentage points after the back-to-back conventions of both major parties about a month ago. She had sustained the lead for most part of August.

But polls that came up on Monday and Tuesday brought down the lead to five points. RealClearPolitics, a Chicago-based political news and polling data aggregator, keeps track of almost all major polls.

Of the four national polls that came out in last 24 hours, Clinton was ahead in three. To the surprise of many, Trump has gained ground and is leading the former Secretary of State by three percentage points in the polls conducted by Los Angeles Times/University of South Carolina.

Clinton has a five point advantage against Trump in the polls released by PPP (D), leading by 48 to 43 per cent.

Another survey released by Monmouth University shows the former Secretary of State leading Trump by 46 to 39 per cent.

In the NBC News/Survey Monkey poll Clinton leads Trump by six percentage points (48 to 42 per cent).

However, Clinton continues to remain pollsters' favourite to win the elections.

This is mainly because she is leading in most of the key swing States of Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

Clinton holds a 10-point advantage of 48.8 percent to 38.8 percent in the POLITICO Battleground States Polling Average of tracking polls in the field back to late July.

Photograph: Aaron P Bernstein/Reuters