He may have been attracting controversies over the past weeks, but Republican presidential hopeful and businessman Donald Trump is catching up with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the race to the White House, the most recent CNN/ORC pre-election polling showed.
The survey showed Trump narrowing Clinton's lead by just 6 points—a dramatic improvement from last July's poll, when the controversial tycoon was 16 points behind the former US Secretary of State.
This marked the first time that a possible Republican Party candidate is competitive enough to win the general elections next year.
Trump's ratings improved significantly among all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, with 79 percent giving their approval to the reality television star compared to the 67 percent last July.
Trump also improved his figures among men, scoring 53 percent in current approval ratings from 46 percent last July. He also gathered more support from white voters, 55 percent of whom expressed approval towards him.
Clinton, however, still leads her rivals from the opposing party. She is ahead by 6 points from another Republican candidate, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. She also tops GOP's former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by 9 points, and businesswoman Carly Fiorina by 10 points.
Clinton's popularity mainly comes from women voters, 52 percent of whom viewed her favourably based on the latest CNN/ORC survey.
Although she still enjoys a 44-percent favourable rating across all voters, Clinton's positive impressions continue to fade, at the height of controversies surrounding her supposed use of a personal email account and server while serving as US Secretary of State.
Clinton got a 53-percent unfavourable rating in the latest survey, her most negative favourability rating since March 2001.
For Trump, Clinton's e-mail controversy may prove to be "devastating" for her chances in the White House race.
"I think that Hillary's going to have a hard time being in the election based on what's going on with the emails, the servers, maybe even the speeches. I think it's going to be a very hard thing for her to overcome," Trump said.
