For the first time in months, Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, is slightly ahead of Democratic aspirant Hillary Clinton, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll.
The latest reading of public opinion says Trump is now leading with 46% of likely voters, while Clinton has 45%.
The two bitter White House rivals are divided by a slim .7 (point seven) percentage point margin, which is well within the poll’s margin of error.
Trump led Clinton in just one other ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll, conducted in May shortly after he clinched the Republican nomination.
At that time, Clinton and former Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders were still locked in a primary battle.
Conducted between Oct. 27 and Oct. 30, the poll surveyed 1,128 likely voters and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The RealClear Politics polling average for Oct. 22 to Oct. 31 shows Clinton ahead by a margin of 2.4 percentage points with 47.7% support.
According to a Real Clear Politics average of recent polls, Clinton’s lead had declined from 4.6 points on Friday to 2.5 points on Monday.
The former secretary of state is apparently losing ground after renewed controversy over her use of a private email server while she was head of the US State Department.
On the other hand, Trump seems to have recovered from a fall in public opinion in the wake of a spate of past scandals as revealed by several women last month.
Director FBI James Comey told Congress in a letter made public on Friday that his agency was looking into new emails that may be connected to Clinton.
However, the FBI has revealed very little to the public about the new emails under investigation, except that they were uncovered during an unrelated investigation into former US congressman Anthony Weiner, the now separated husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
