WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is leading Republican rival Donald Trump nationally by six percentage points among likely voters, according to a new poll.

In a head-to-head between the two major party nominees, Clinton's lead expands to seven percentage points, 48 per cent to 41 per cent. Four per cent of respondents said they would not vote for president, while three per cent said they were undecided, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released on Wednesday, showed.

Half of the registered voters backing Clinton said their vote was more for Clinton, while 44 per cent characterised it as more against Trump, Politico reported.

On the Republican side, only 41 per cent of registered voters said their vote was for Trump, 51 per cent said it was against Clinton, the poll showed.

Registered voters gave Trump the edge as the candidate who would be best in dealing with the economy, but they favoured Clinton when it came to dealing with immigration, changing the country for the better, being a good Commander-in-Chief and handling nuclear weapons.

According to the poll, both candidates were virtually tied on the issue of terrorism and national security, with Clinton claiming a narrow one-point advantage.

Voters also said they cared less about Clinton's recent health issues than Trump's taxes and cited the real estate mogul's rhetoric toward women, immigrants and Muslims; his temperament; Clinton's private server during her tenure as Secretary of State and her judgement in Syria, Iraq and Libya as their top concerns.

The survey of 922 likely voters was conducted on September 16-19 via landline and cellphone. It has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.2 percentage points.

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