Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in Electoral College race: Poll

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives for a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 22, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

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 percent 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.

US citizens do not directly elect the president or the vice president; instead they choose "electors", who usually pledge to vote for particular nominees. The US Electoral College is the body that elects the American president and vice president every four years.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves to supporters while campaigning on October 22, 2016 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. (Photo by AFP)

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 percent of respondents, regardless of political party, said 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 percent 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.