Clinton still frontrunner despite FBI emails letter: poll

[WASHINGTON] Democrat Hillary Clinton maintained her lead over Republican Donald Trump in their race for the White House, even in the wake of renewed scrutiny of her use of a private email server, a poll showed Monday.

Barely a week from the election, the NBC News/SurveyMonkey weekly poll showed Mrs Clinton's six-point national lead remained essentially unchanged since last week.

FBI Director James Comey's announcement on Friday of the recent discovery of emails that could be "pertinent" to the agency's investigation of Mrs Clinton's use of a private email server while she served as secretary of state had little impact on voters, the Oct 24-30 online poll found.

Results of the week's tracking poll showed that, in a four-way race including two "third-party" candidates, Mrs Clinton is supported by 47 per cent of likely supporters while Mr Trump maintains 41 per cent support.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson dropped a single percentage point to six per cent support, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein had three per cent support.

In a race with just the major party candidates, Mrs Clinton has a seven-point lead over Mr Trump, with 51 per cent in favour compared with his 44 per cent, in the final stretch ahead of the Nov 8 election.

The pollsters included questions about Mr Comey's announcement on Saturday and Sunday.

The poll showed likely voters were split on whether they thought the FBI announcement was an important issue to discuss - 55 per cent - or more of a distraction to the campaign - 44 per cent.

For independent voters who do not lean toward either party, 68 per cent said it was an important issue, while 31 per cent said it was a distraction.

The poll was conducted among 40,816 people considered likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point.

AFP