CNN —
Vice President Kamala Harris has a narrow lead in two of three “blue wall” states, offering the clearest path to electoral victory over former President Donald Trump, according to CNN’s latest poll conducted by SSRS. is maintained.
In Michigan, Ms. Harris leads Mr. Trump among voters by a margin of 48% to 43%. Harris also leads Trump in Wisconsin, where 51% support her and 45% support Trump. However, the race is tight in Pennsylvania (both states have an approval rating of 48%), which is the biggest electoral prize of the three states and central to both candidates’ hopes of winning the White House. All three states swung in Trump’s favor in 2016, but were won by President Joe Biden in 2020.
Of the seven states rated as toss-ups by CNN, only two, Michigan and Wisconsin, still have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on voters’ ballots. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a former independent candidate who called off his candidacy for the presidential election and abandoned his support for President Trump. Kennedy’s approval rating is 3% in Michigan and 1% in Wisconsin. Overall, support for third-party and independent candidates was highest in Michigan, where 6% of likely voters said they would support a candidate other than Harris or Trump.
Among voters who are thought to be most motivated to vote, there is less support for independent and third-party candidates. Among likely Michigan voters who say they are very likely to vote, 51% support Harris and 45% support Trump. In Wisconsin, the split is 52% for Harris and 47% for Trump, and in Pennsylvania, the split is 50% for Harris and 47% for Trump.
The overall results are similar to the last round of CNN polls conducted in those three states in late summer, when the margins were 50% to 44% in Wisconsin and 48% to 43% in Michigan. Ms. Harris leads Mr. Trump, and Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are tied. 47% in Pennsylvania.
The vast majority of voters in blue wall states have their choices set in stone. Among potential voters, only 8% in Pennsylvania, 7% in Michigan, and Wisconsin say they have not yet made a choice or are likely to change their minds by Election Day. In the state, it was 6%.
Ms. Harris is much closer to Mr. Trump in terms of confidence in managing the economy and has done even better than Mr. Trump in handling democracy in both Michigan and Wisconsin, but in key She has a broader advantage over Penn State in attributes, a difference that helps explain her strength at the top. Midwestern states.
Her lead over Trump on confidence in the management of the economy (a perennial election issue that has given Trump an advantage throughout the 2024 campaign) is more modest in these states. The difference between the two is just four points in Michigan and three points in Wisconsin, so the margins are close. Margin of sampling error for each poll. By contrast, Harris is trailing Trump by 8 points on the Pennsylvania issue. In Michigan and Wisconsin, Harris had an 8-point lead over Trump in terms of confidence in protecting democracy, but in Pennsylvania, she had a narrow 4-point lead.
Voters in Michigan and Wisconsin are also likely to give Harris a relatively broad advantage, perceiving her as more honest and trustworthy. Harris leads Trump on this attribute by 17 points in Wisconsin and 16 points in Michigan, but by 7 points in Pennsylvania. And voters in Michigan and Wisconsin also say Harris is a candidate likely to put the country’s interests ahead of their own. Wisconsin voters say so by a 10-point margin, and Michigan voters think so by an 8-point margin. In Pennsylvania, this is an issue on which voters are almost evenly divided (46% for Harris, 45% for Trump).
Voters in Michigan and Wisconsin were more likely than voters in Pennsylvania to say Harris cares about people like them, compared with a 9-point difference in the upper Midwest states. In contrast, the difference in Pennsylvania was just 3 points.
In each of the three states, a higher percentage of likely voters said they supported Harris than said they shared her vision for the United States, and Trump’s overall approval rating was lower on this issue. His position is closer to that of the former president. This may suggest that some voters support Harris not out of enthusiasm for her policies but out of concern about Trump’s character.
Across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, majorities of voters support Harris, saying her leadership qualities are more important than the issues on the ballot. And in each state, roughly 4 in 10 Harris supporters said they were voting more against Trump than for Harris, primarily against Harris. That’s higher than the percentage of Trump voters who said they were.
Harris’ narrow leads in Michigan and Wisconsin are due in part to relatively strong performance among white voters who traditionally beat Republicans and white voters without college degrees. White voters in both states were almost evenly split (48% for Trump and 44% for Harris in Michigan, and 48% each in Wisconsin, which has a larger white population than the other two states). Mr. Trump’s margins among white voters without a college degree in these two states are not close to his margins among his peers in Pennsylvania (54% to 37% in Michigan, 54% to 43% in Wisconsin; Trump leads 61% to 34%). .
Harris’ lead among black voters has widened in Michigan (83% for Harris to 12% for Trump) and is ahead of Pennsylvania (76% for Harris and 21% for Trump). She has significant advantages over likely voters with a college degree in all three states (59% to 36% in Wisconsin, 56% to 36% in Michigan; (59% vs. 37% in Pennsylvania).
The intensity of the race in Pennsylvania is reflected across the state’s urban and rural voters. Harris’ lead among voters who say they live in urban areas in Pennsylvania (53% to 38%) is much smaller than in Michigan (61% to 31%). %) and Wisconsin (70% to 28%), while Trump’s lead among likely rural voters is highest in the Keystone State (68% to 30%; (31% vs. 56% vs. 35% in Michigan). .
But voters who are likely to live in the suburbs favor Harris evenly in all three states: 55% to 40% in Pennsylvania, 52% to 40% in Michigan, and 51% in Wisconsin. vs. 45%). Suburban voters account for about half of prospective voters in Pennsylvania, compared to 37% in Michigan and 28% in Wisconsin.
In all three states, Senate races will be competitive in seats held by Democrats. Opinion polls show all three candidates in close races. Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin leads Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers among likely voters, 48% to 42%. In a race without a clear leader, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey holds 48% support and Republican Sen. Dave McCormick maintains 45% support. And in Wisconsin, there is no clear leader in the Senate race, with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin holding 49% support and Republican Sen. Eric Hovde holding 47% support.
Compared to battleground states in the South and West, early voting and voting by mail have a short history in the Blue Wall states, with less than one-third of voters across the three states saying they have already cast a ballot. In Michigan, 36% of potential voters said they mailed in a ballot or voted early, followed by 34% in Wisconsin and 26% in Pennsylvania. This is the first presidential election to feature in-person early voting in Michigan, and turnout soared in the first few days of statewide early voting last weekend.
Those who say they have already voted are among the groups of voters in each poll that strongly favor Harris in all three states (Michigan, 61% to 35%; Wisconsin, 60% to 38%; 57% in Wisconsin) and 40% in Pennsylvania). If these numbers hold in Pennsylvania, they would reflect a significant shift in support for Trump compared to mail-in votes cast in the 2020 election. Biden carried 76% of the vote to Trump’s 23%, according to the state’s election results.
More than three-quarters of prospective voters in each of the three states surveyed said they had at least some confidence that their state’s votes would be accurately cast and counted in this year’s election. Ta. Almost 95% or more of Harris supporters in each state express confidence, compared to about 6 in 10 Trump supporters in each state.
Interviews were conducted online and by phone from October 23-28, 2024, with registered voters, including 726 people in Michigan, 819 people in Pennsylvania, and 736 people in Wisconsin. Likely voters include all voters registered to vote, weighted based on their predicted likelihood of voting in this year’s election. The results for likely voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points. That’s 4.8 points among likely Wisconsin voters.
