WASHINGTON - US Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has maintained her lead against her Republican rival Donald Trump in the race to win the Electoral College, a new poll shows.

Clinton has a better than 95 per cent chance of winning the US Presidency if the election was held this week, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project results released on Saturday.

The most likely outcome would be 326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump.

A candidate needs a minimum of 270 electoral votes to win the Presidency.

The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors who cast votes to decide the President and Vice-President of the United States.

When voters go to the polls on Nov 8, they will be choosing which candidate receives their State’s electors.

The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes (270) wins the Presidency.

The number 538 is the sum of the nation’s 435 Congressmen, 100 Senators and 3 electors given to the District of Columbia.

Trump came off his best debate performance of the campaign on Wednesday evening but the polling consensus still showed Clinton winning the third and final face-off on prime-time TV.

The Republican candidate disputes those findings The Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates that the broader picture remains bleak for Trump with 17 days to go until the November 8 election, even as some national surveys show the race tightening a bit this week.

According to the poll, a low voter turnout would generally benefit Trump, therefore, his best hope for success is if Republican voter turnout is high and Democratic turnout is low.

However, there is broad concern across the political spectrum about voter suppression, the actual vote count and ineligible voters casting ballots.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday shows that 60 per cent of respondents, regardless of political party, said that they are worried about issues such as voter intimidation and suppression.

According to the poll, only half of Republicans would accept Clinton as their President if she wins and nearly 70 per cent of them said a Clinton victory would be because of vote rigging.

The level of concern and mistrust in the system, especially among Republicans, is unprecedented, said Lonna Atkeson, a professor at the University of New Mexico and head of the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections, and Democracy.