Harris leads in new poll in key swing state

Top line

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are within one percentage point in seven new polls conducted this week in Pennsylvania and by two points in an eighth poll as the race remains essentially close, likely to determine the winner of the 2024 election.

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a moderated discussion … (+) conversation with former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, at the People’s Light Performing Arts Theater in Malvern, Pennsylvania, on October 21, 2024. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Key facts

Harris leads by two points, 50%-48%, in Marist questionnaire this includes undecided voters leaning towards a given candidate (margin of error of 3.4 points) and by one point 48-47% according to the Washington Post vote (3.1-point margin of error), both released Friday, and the Post poll showed no movement in the race since its September survey.

Trump rose 50-49% both ways Fox News Poll likely voters in Pennsylvania turned out Wednesday – well within a three-point margin of error – while the tie is 48% if respondents could choose third-party candidates (about 3% of voters chose another candidate).

Trump also has a 47-46% WA lead Quinnipiac poll of likely voters released Wednesday (margin of error of 2.1 points and respondents could have chosen other candidates), though the Cooperative Election Study shows Harris with a slim lead of 49-48% vote published this week (3,685 respondents surveyed as part of a nationwide survey of universities conducted by YouGov).

Meanwhile, the race is dead even at 48%-48% wt CNN/SSRS poll likely voters on Wednesday – while only 8% said they were undecided or might change their mind – and CBS/YouGov a likely poll released Tuesday found a similar 49-49% tie.

Turnout may play a role: Trump had a 47-46% lead in Monmouth poll of all registered voters released Wednesday, but among respondents who are extremely motivated to vote the percentage is 48-48%, and Harris leads with 48-47% among people who have voted in most or all general elections since 2014 .(margin of error 3.8 points).

Last week, Harris led Trump 50% to 48.2% among likely voters in a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll questionnaire (margin of error 3), and Harris had a 49-47% advantage in the Washington Post/Schar school vote (margin of error 4.6), while Trump increased 49-48% last year. Emerson Poll (margin of error 3.4).

Earlier this month, Harris overtook Trump by three points, 50%-47%, in the New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College pair surveys released on October 12, while Trump increased by 47-46% from September 28 to October. 8 Wall Street Journal vote registered voters who declared that they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for one of the candidates.

Polling averages are close to a tie, and Trump’s lead is narrow: Trump leads Pennsylvania by 0.3 points in FiveThirtyEight’s rankings average.

Pennsylvania has more electoral votes, 19, than any other battleground, and Pennsylvanians routinely choose winners by voting for 10 of the last 12 White House winners — the candidate who won Pennsylvania also won Michigan and Wisconsin (these three states together are known as “blue wall”) in the last eight elections.

According to statistics from Nate Silver, Pennsylvania has a much better chance of swinging the election than any other battleground state. election forecasting modelwhich also showed that both candidates have a greater than 85% chance of winning the election if they secure Pennsylvania.

Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since the 1980s in the 2016 election, and Biden – a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania – reversed that trend in 2020, with the state surpassing the 270-vote threshold needed to win the College election

Pennsylvania is also important to Trump personally because he was shot there on July 14 while speaking at a rally near Butler.

The state has a large percentage of working-class white voters, and nearly 75% of the population identifies as non-Hispanic whites – a demographic that Trump typically does well with, although Harris has gained an advantage among white voters compared to Biden’s 2020 performance. according to the latest data, he is only three points behind Trump nationwide PBS News/NPR/Marist pollafter Trump won demographically by 12 points in 2020.

A surprising fact

Since 1948, no Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania. If Harris wins Pennsylvania and the trend of winning Wisconsin and Michigan also continues, it is almost certain that she will win the White House.

Key background

If Trump maintains his advantage in Arizona and Georgia and wins North Carolina as expected, he will only need one of the “Blue Wall” states (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) to win the White House.

A large number

82%. That percentage of registered voters in Pennsylvania said the economy was the main factor influencing their vote in 2024, followed by inflation at 78% and the state of democracy at 70%, according to the CBS/YouGov survey. questionnaire. According to a recent Pew Research study, the results are comparable to those of the national electorate questionnaire registered voters, which shows that 81% of registered voters rate the economy as “very important” in the election.

Chief critic

Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Harris over her past support for the initiative fracking ban—Pennsylvania is the nation’s second-largest producer of natural gas. “Fracking? She has been against this for 12 years,” Trump said during the debate in Philadelphia. Harris, who said “there’s no doubt in my mind that I support a fracking ban” during her 2019 CNN climate town hall, said she has since changed her position. During her debate with Trump, Harris stated that she made it “very clear” in 2020 that she opposed a fracking ban, possibly referring to the vice president’s debate with Mike Pence, and noted that the Fracking Act inflation opened new gas leases – reiterating his position in an interview with CNN last month. Harris didn’t actually say she changed her position on the issue during the 2020 debate – instead, she said then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “won’t end fracking.”

Tangent

Pennsylvania has a divided state legislature. The state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, is very popular in the state. Democrats also control the House, but Republicans have a majority in the Senate.