Washington: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is leading Republican rival Donald Trump by 2 percentage points among likely voters, according to a national Fox News poll.

In a four-way race, Clinton earned 45 per cent support in the survey, which was conducted from Tuesday to Thursday, while Trump received 43 per cent. Five per cent of those surveyed said they support Libertarian Gary Johnson, and 2 per cent said they support the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the poll revealed on Friday.

In the poll, Trump was favoured by men (+11 points), whites (+19), and whites without a college degree (+33).

Clinton led among women (+13 points), African-Americans (+74), and voters under age 30 (+17).

She was also ahead by 11 points among the one-in-five who have already voted (50-39 per cent).

They split the support of whites with a college degree: Trump got 45 per cent to Clinton’s 42 per cent.

Both candidates consolidated their bases, but Clinton outperforms Trump: she gets 90 per cent among Democrats and he gets 85 per cent of Republicans, the poll showed.

Some 74 per cent of voters said the FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State would not make a difference to their vote, and 4 per cent said it makes them more likely to support her.

Yet 21 per cent said it makes them less likely to vote for her, including 37 per cent of Republicans and 21 per cent of independents. Among Democrats, 5 per cent said it made them less likely to support Clinton, while 7 per cent said it made them more likely.

While both candidates remained unpopular, Clinton’s lost her advantage here. Her net negative rating is 13 points (43 favourable vs. 56 unfavourable).

Last week she was underwater by 8. At the same time, Trump’s net negative 12 points (43 favourable vs. 55 unfavourable) improved a bit from negative 14 a week ago, the poll showed.

Roughly 15 per cent of likely voters dislike both Clinton and Trump.

Most of Clinton’a supporters remain confident in their candidate, as 90 per cent think it will be Madame President, down slightly from 93 percent in mid-October.

At the same time, Trump’s supporters felt more confident: 69 per cent thought he would win, up from 56 per cent.

The Fox News Poll was based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,211 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide.

The survey included results among 1,107 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for results among registered voters and plus or minus 3 points among likely voters.