Week before elections, Trump leads Clinton by a point: Poll

A week before the US presidential elections, Republican nominee Donald Trump has taken a slender lead of one percentage point against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for the first time since May in a major national tracking poll.

Trump has overtaken Clinton in the ABC News/ Washington Post tracking poll, according to which the Republican candidate has the support of 46 per cent of the likely voters as against 45 per cent by the former secretary of state.

"Strong enthusiasm for Clinton has lost seven points since the start of tracking, especially Friday through Sunday. This is possibly an after-effect of the renewed controversy over her use of a private email server while secretary of state. Trump's strong enthusiasm has held steady in tracking, which started October 20," the poll said.

According to the poll, Trump now leads Clinton by eight points in the share of voters who are very enthusiastic about their choice as of Friday.

But, compared to past elections it's low for both of them –- 53 per cent for Trump, 45 per cent for Clinton, it said.

However, in RealClearPolitics average of polls Trump trails Clinton by 2.2 percentage points. RealClearPolitics tracks all major national polls.

Till about two weeks ago, Clinton was leading Trump by more than eight points in this average of polls.

Trump in a tweet celebrated results of the latest poll.

"Wow, now leading in @ABC/@washingtonpost Poll 46 to 45. Gone up 12 points in two weeks, mostly before the Crooked Hillary blow-up!" he said.

In another tweet, Trump slammed Clinton for alleged email scandal and claimed she is not fit to be the US president.

"Look at the way Crooked Hillary is handling the e-mail case and the total mess she is in. She is unfit to be president. Bad judgement!" Trump said in the first tweet of the day.

"Crooked Hillary should not be allowed to run for president. She deleted 33,000 e-mails AFTER getting a subpoena from US Congress. RIGGED!" Trump said in his third tweet.

In the last few days, various polls coming out from key battleground states indicate that the polls are tightening and it might not be a cakewalk for Clinton any longer.

For instance in Virginia, where Clinton was leading comfortably in double digit, the latest poll indicate that Trump is now trailing by six points. In the last two weeks, Trump has pumped in $3 million in local advertisements.

However, a reliable election model today predicted a win for Clinton in the November 8 presidential elections. Moody's Analytics, latest model today forecast Clinton
winning 332 electoral votes to Trump’s 206.

The Moody's model -- which picks a party, not a candidate -- has predicted every election correctly since it was created in 1980.

Photograph: Reuters