US election: Donald Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton in new poll

Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton in the race to become US president, according to a new poll.

Donald Trump has taken the lead over Hillary Clinton in the race to become US president

While vote preferences have held steady, the Democrat candidate is now one point behind her Republican counterpart - for the first time since May - in the latest ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll.

The poll shows that 46 per cent of likely voters support Trump in the latest results, with 45 percent for Clinton.

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

The poll comes after the FBI announced that it would investigate whether newly discovered emails may be relevant to its investigation of Clinton’s use of a private server.