A new poll shows that US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is only one percentage point trailing his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential race.
According to the NBC News/Survey Monkey Weekly Election Tracking poll released on Tuesday, the former secretary of state has 46 percent of the votes as compared to Trump's 45 percent, down from last week's version of the poll that showed Clinton on the lead by 3 percentage points.
The poll reveals that only 11 percent of Republican voters think their party is unified while half the party thinks it is divided now but will unite by the November election.
Nearly 40 percent of the GOP voters believe the party will still be divided in November.
The poll also found that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders's endorsement of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee did not have a large impact on most Democratic voters, with 72 percent saying his endorsement did not make much of a difference.
The poll was conducted among 9,436 US adult participants as registered voters between July 11 and 17 with a 1.4-percentage point margin of error.
Late on Tuesday, the New York businessman was formally announced as the nominee of the Republican Party in the 2016 presidential election.
Earlier this month, Gallup released a poll indicating that Trump and Clinton were currently among the worst-rated presidential candidates of the last 70 years.
When Americans were asked what comes to mind when they think of Clinton, 27 percent said they did not trust her, 13 percent said they did not like her and eight percent said she is a “criminal” or “corrupt.”
The latest responses reflect that many Americans continue to see Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy and dislike her in general.
Trump also evoked a variety of negative reactions about his personality. Sixteen percent said they disliked him, while 12 percent described him as an "idiot" or a "joke" and 10 percent as a "racist" or a "bigot."
Eight percent viewed him as "reckless" or "dangerous" and seven percent as someone who speaks without thinking.