Hillary Clinton holds slim 3 point lead over Donald Trump: Poll

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton holds a slim lead of three percentage points over her Republican rival Donald Trump, a latest national poll showed on Thursday amid strong indications that the race to the White House is entering the arena of dead heat.

Five days ahead of the November 8 general elections, a latest poll conducted jointly by The New York Times and CBS news said that Clinton (45 per cent) has a slim lead of three percentage points over Trump (42 per cent), which is within the margin of error.

In RealClearPolitics, which keeps track of almost all major national polls, Clinton's average lead over Trump now has dropped down to 1.7 per cent.

"Five days before Election Day, the margin between the candidates is narrow, with 45 per cent of likely voters supporting Clinton, the Democratic candidate, to 42 per cent for Trump, the Republican nominee."

"The difference is within the poll margin of sampling error," The New York Times wrote.

However, the daily said Clinton has 86 per cent chances of winning the presidential elections.

The New York Times has endorsed Clinton for presidency.

According to the polls, Clinton holds a 14 point advantage over her opponent among women while Trump leads among men by 11 points.

In another poll released by Reuters/Ipsos, Trump (39 per cent) is trailing Clinton (45 per cent) by six points, which remains unchanged for the past one week.