Washington, (IANS) : US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton holds a lead over her Republican rival Donald Trump by eight percentage points, according to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Online Tracking Poll issued on Tuesday.

The former Secretary of State, who has been consistently polling ahead of Trump in national polls since the end of July, is now favoured by 50 per cent of registered voters, while Trump is backed by 42 per cent, the poll finds.

In a four-way matchup, Clinton holds a 5-point lead over Trump, 43 per cent to 38 per cent. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has 11 per cent support while Green Party leader Jill Stein has 5 per cent.

Among black voters, Clinton holds a huge lead — 87 per cent of black voters said they will support her, while the New York billionaire only enjoys the support of 8 per cent.

Clinton also leads over Trump among Hispanic voters, 73 per cent to 22 per cent and with Asian-American voters, 66 per cent to 23 per cent.

However, she trails Trump among white voters, 41 per cent to 50 per cent.

The poll found that 65 per cent of registered voters polled said race relations are getting worse in the country, and only 10 per cent hold the opposite opinion. Another 24 per cent said they were staying the same. More than half of registered voters polled also said men and women still don’t enjoy equal opportunities.

The survey was conducted on Aug 15-21 among 17,459 adults who said they are registered to vote. The margin of error is 1.1 per cent.