Harris leads in key swing state in new poll

Topline

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are within one percentage point of each other in seven new Pennsylvania polls this week and two points apart in an eighth poll as the race essentially remains in a swing state that will likely decide the winner . 2024 elections.

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a moderated … (+) Conversation with former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, Wyoming Republican, at the People’s Light Performing Arts Theater in Malvern, Pennsylvania, 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 the Marist poll of undecided voters leaning toward the candidate (margin of error 3.4 points), and by one point, 48%-47%, in the Washington Post poll. (margin of error 3.1 points), both were released Friday, with the Post poll showing no change in the race since the September survey.

Trump was up 50% to 49% in a two-way Fox News poll of likely Pennsylvania voters conducted Wednesday (within a three-point margin of error), while the candidates were split 48% if respondents could choose third-party candidates (about 3% voters chose another candidate).

Trump also has a 47%-46% lead in the Quinnipiac poll of likely voters released Wednesday (the margin of error is 2.1 points and respondents may choose other candidates), although Harris has a slight lead of 49%-48% in the Cooperative Election Study. survey published this week (3,685 respondents surveyed as part of YouGov’s National Universities Survey).

Meanwhile, according to a CNN/SSRS poll of likely voters released Wednesday, the race is dead even at 48%-48% — while just 8% said they were undecided or might change their minds, and CBS/YouGov found a similar 49%. — A voter poll released Tuesday puts the vote at 49%.

Turnout may play a role: In a Monmouth poll of all registered voters released Wednesday, Trump led 47% to 46%, but among respondents who are extremely motivated to vote, the race is tied at 48% to 48%, with Harris leading at 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 (margin of error 3), and Harris led Trump 49% to 47% in a Washington Post/Schar School poll (margin of error 4.6). ), while Trump scored 49–48% according to the Emerson poll (margin of error 3.4).

Earlier this month, Harris led Trump by three points, 50%-47%, in two New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College polls released Oct. 12, while Trump was up 47%-46% in polls Sept. 28 . -October. 8 Wall Street Journal poll of registered voters who said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for either candidate.

The polling averages are close to even, with Trump leading by a slight margin: Trump leads by 0.3 points in Pennsylvania, according to the FiveThirtyEight average.

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

According to statistician Nate Silver’s election forecasting model, Pennsylvania has a much better chance of influencing the election than any other battleground state.

Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since the 1980s in the 2016 election, and Biden, originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, reversed the trend in 2020 when the state passed the 270-vote threshold needed to win the election. College

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

The state has a large share of white working-class voters, with nearly 75% of the population identifying as non-Hispanic white, a demographic that Trump typically does well, although Harris did well among white voters compared to Biden’s 2020 performance. , trailing Trump by just three points nationally in the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, after Trump won by a 12-point demographic margin in 2020.

Amazing fact

Since 1948, no Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania. If Harris wins Pennsylvania and the winning trend in Wisconsin and Michigan continues, she will almost certainly win the White House.

Key background

If Trump maintains his lead 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.

Large number

82%. That’s the share of registered voters in Pennsylvania who said the economy is the top factor in their vote in 2024, followed by inflation at 78% and the state of democracy at 70%, according to the CBS/YouGov poll. The results are on par with the national electorate, according to a recent Pew Research survey of registered voters, which found that 81% of registered voters rate the economy as “very important” in the election.

Chief critic

Trump and his allies have repeatedly criticized Harris for her previous endorsement of a fracking ban: Pennsylvania is the second-largest natural gas producer in the country. “Schedule? She has been against this for 12 years,” Trump said during a debate in Philadelphia. Harris, who said during a CNN climate town hall in 2019 when she was running for president, “there’s no question that I’m for banning fracking,” said she has since changed her position. During her debate with Trump, Harris said she made it “very clear” in 2020 that she opposes a fracking ban, presumably referring to her vice presidential debate with Mike Pence, and noted that the Inflation Reduction Act opened new gas lease agreements, confirming the position she took. in an interview with CNN last month. Harris didn’t actually say she had changed her stance on the issue during the 2020 debate—instead, she said then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “won’t stop fracking.”

Tangent

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