Trump takes lead in latest polls

Donald Trump has taken a slim lead in the US presidential race, according to the latest in an incessant series of daily tracking polls.

Three of four surveys out today have the Republican edging ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of between 1-5%.

The Republicans had a mixed convention, with a plagiarism mini-scandal and a bad-tempered reaction to a speech by Senator Ted Cruz (who failed to endorse Mr Trump, then got into a shouting match with delegates at a breakfast event the next day) being offset by what was generally seen as a strong acceptance speech performance by the candidate.

A CNN//ORC comparison of pre- and post-convention polling makes particularly demoralising reading for Mrs Clinton, indicating that Mr Trump has managed to win over supporters of Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico who heads the Libertarian ticket.

Things might get worse for the Democrat with the next round of polls.

Wikileaks' release of 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails has blighted the party's convention, which kicks off in Philadelphia today.

The emails expose apparent bias in the party hierarchy against Mrs Clinton's challenger in the primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders and have already claimed the scalp of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz, who resigned yesterday.

Already, the first afternoon of the convention has been marred by some of his own supporters booing Mr Sanders when he urged them to support Mrs Clinton.

Some Democrats have attempted to counter the email leak controversy by alleging it was carried out by Russian hackers (as suggested by a security report) by alleging that the theft of the emails was orchestrated by Russian president Vladimir Putin in an attempt to influence American politics. After all, Mr Trump has praised Mr Putin as a "strong leader" and that he would like to "get along with Russia" if elected. However, so far, they seem to be drawing too long a bow and the Putin-Trump conspiracy theory has drawn more mockery than traction [UPDATE: International security specialist Paul Buchanan does give the Russian rumours some currency, and says regardless their will be political fallout for Mr Trump. Listen to the Dr Buchanan's NBR Radio interview here.]

Get full access to the NBR Rich List 2016, released July 28, by claiming your free 30-day trial to NBR ONLINE premium content at NBR.co.nz/free