US elections: Who is ahead in the polls – Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?

Hillary Clinton looks set to take the White House but it will be much closer than previously thought

As the race for the White House enters its final few days, both sides remain on tenterhooks.

Most polls have Hillary Clinton in front, but they still remain perilously close.

The latest polls indicate that Ms Clinton's is between four and five per cent ahead, with a small lead in the key state of Florida.

You can follow The Independent's coverage of the election here.

But another poll of polls has put Ms Clinton on roughly 46 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Trump’s 44 per cent while the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll has her only one point ahead.

Tellingly, enthusiasm for Ms Clinton’s candidacy is down from 51 per cent to 47 per cent – prompting fears it could depress turnout on 8 November.

The Clinton campaign is reportedly fearful after early voting in several battleground states indicates the African American vote is down on what it was four years ago.

In North Carolina, where civil rights group fought a high-profile battle against voting rules that disenfranchised black voters, the African American vote was down 16 per cent while white turnout was up by 15 per cent, the New York Times reported.

Equally, swing states which were looking like they were tipping in Ms Clinton’s favour in the wake of revelations about footage where Mr Trump boasts of getting away with sexually assaulting women because he was a “star”.

Ms Clinton still holds a six per cent lead in Pennsylvania – with its 20 electoral college votes – according to a poll for regional newspaper Morning Call, but Ohio – with 18 electoral college votes – is leaning 2.7 per cent in Mr Trump’s favour according to RealClearPolitics.

The US election is decided by the Electoral College system which has a total of 538 voters divided up between the 50 states according to population size.

This means the election is ultimately decided by a handful of key “battleground” states across the country even though they do not have the largest number of electoral college voters.

Based on the current distribution of votes in each of these states Ms Clinton looks most likely to win in the Electoral College with polling currently projecting she will win 347 seats to Mr Trump’s 191.