CNN Polls: Harris has a narrow edge in Michigan and Wisconsin, while she and Trump remain tied in Pennsylvania

By Jennifer Agiesta, Ariel Edwards-Levy and Edward Wu, CNN

(CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris maintains a narrow advantage in two of the three “blue wall” states that collectively represent her clearest path to an Electoral College victory over former President Donald Trump, according to new CNN polls conducted by SSRS.

In Michigan, Harris holds a lead over Trump by 48% to 43% among likely voters. Harris also leads Trump in Wisconsin, where 51% support her to 45% for Trump. But the race is tied in Pennsylvania (both with 48% support), the largest electoral prize of the three states and a central piece of either candidate’s hopes of winning the White House. All three states broke in Trump’s favor in 2016, but President Joe Biden won them in 2020.

Of the seven states rated as tossups by CNN, Michigan and Wisconsin are the only two where voters’ ballots still include Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – the former independent candidate who suspended his bid for the presidency and threw his support behind Trump. In Michigan, Kennedy holds 3% support, and he stands at 1% in Wisconsin. Support for third-party and independent candidates overall runs highest in Michigan, with 6% of likely voters there saying they back a candidate other than Harris or Trump.

There is less support for independent and third-party candidates among those likely voters who express the highest motivation to turn out. Among those likely voters who say they’re extremely motivated to vote in Michigan, 51% support Harris to 45% for Trump. In Wisconsin, they break 52% Harris to 47% Trump, and in Pennsylvania, they divide 50% for Harris to 47% for Trump.

The overall results are nearly identical to the last round of CNN polling in these three states, conducted in late summer, when Harris led Trump by 50% to 44% in Wisconsin and 48% to 43% in Michigan, with Harris and Trump tied at 47% in Pennsylvania.

The vast majority of blue wall state voters have locked in their choices. Just 8% of likely voters in Pennsylvania, 7% in Michigan and 6% in Wisconsin say they haven’t made a choice or could change their minds before Election Day.

Harris runs much closer to Trump on trust to handle the economy and further ahead of him on handling democracy in both Michigan and Wisconsin, where she also holds wider advantages on key attributes than in Pennsylvania, differences that help to explain her stronger showing in the upper Midwest states.

Her deficit against Trump on trust to handle the economy – a perennial top election issue and a Trump strength throughout the 2024 campaign – is more modest in those states: Just 4 points separate the two in Michigan and 3 points in Wisconsin, differences that are within each poll’s margin of sampling error. By contrast, Harris trails Trump by 8 points on the issue in Pennsylvania. Harris also holds an 8-point advantage over Trump on trust to protect democracy in Michigan and Wisconsin, compared with a narrow 4-point margin in Pennsylvania.

Likely voters in Michigan and Wisconsin also give Harris a relatively broad advantage on perceptions that she’s more honest and trustworthy: She leads Trump on this attribute by 17 points in Wisconsin and 16 points in Michigan, compared to a 7-point margin in Pennsylvania. And those voters in Michigan and Wisconsin also say that Harris is the candidate more likely to put the country’s interest above her own: Wisconsin likely voters say that by a 10-point margin and Michigan likely voters do by an 8-point margin. In Pennsylvania, that’s an issue where likely voters are about evenly split (46% Harris to 45% Trump).

These voters in Michigan and Wisconsin are more likely than those in Pennsylvania to say Harris cares about people like them, by 9 points in the upper Midwest states compared with just a 3-point difference in Pennsylvania.

In each of the three states, the percentage of likely voters who say they’re backing Harris is higher than the percentage who say she shares their vision for the US, while Trump’s overall support tracks more closely with his standing on this question. That could suggest that some voters are backing Harris less out of enthusiasm for her platform than out of concerns about Trump’s character.

Across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a majority of voters who say that leadership traits outweigh issues in their votes are backing Harris. And in each state, roughly 4 in 10 of her supporters say they’re voting more to oppose Trump than to support her, higher than the share of Trump voters who say they’re casting their vote predominantly in opposition to Harris.

Harris’ narrow leads in Michigan and Wisconsin are driven in part by relatively strong performance among White voters and White voters without college degrees, two groups which traditionally break Republican. White voters in both states split almost evenly (48% Trump to 44% Harris in Michigan, and 48% each in Wisconsin, which has a larger White population than the other two states). Trump’s margin among White voters without college degrees in those two states state lags behind his margin with the same group in Pennsylvania (Trump leads 54% to 37% in Michigan, 54% to 43% in Wisconsin and 61% to 34% in Pennsylvania).

Harris holds a wider lead among Black voters in Michigan (83% Harris to 12% Trump) than she does in Pennsylvania (76% Harris to 21% Trump). She has significant advantages with likely voters who hold college degrees across all three states (59% to 36% in Wisconsin, 56% to 36% in Michigan and 59% to 37% in Pennsylvania).

The tighter race in Pennsylvania is reflected across urban and rural voters within the state: Harris’ lead among likely voters who say they live in an urban area in Pennsylvania (53% to 38%) is much smaller than in Michigan (61% to 31%) or Wisconsin (70% to 28%), while Trump’s lead among rural likely voters is highest in the Keystone State (68% to 30%, compared with 61% to 31% in Wisconsin and 56% to 35% in Michigan).

Suburban likely voters, though, break broadly for Harris in all three states (55% to 40% in Pennsylvania, 52% to 40% in Michigan and 51% to 45% in Wisconsin). The suburban vote represents about half of likely voters in Pennsylvania, compared to 37% in Michigan and 28% in Wisconsin.

All three states feature competitive Senate races in seats Democrats are defending. The polls find close races for all three. Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin tops Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers 48% to 42% among likely voters. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Sen. Bob Casey holds 48% support to Republican Dave McCormick’s 45% in a race with no clear leader. And in Wisconsin, there also is no clear leader in the Senate race, with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin holding 49% support to Republican Eric Hovde’s 47%.

Compared to Southern and Western battlegrounds, the blue wall states have less of a history of voting early or by-mail, and only about a third or fewer voters across these three say they have already cast ballots. In Michigan, 36% of likely voters say they’ve either mailed in a ballot or voted early, with Wisconsin at 34% and Pennsylvania at 26%. This is the first presidential election in which Michigan has held in-person early voting, and turnout soared in the first few days of statewide early voting over the weekend.

Those who say they have already cast ballots are included in each poll’s group of likely voters, and across all three states they break heavily in Harris’ favor (61% to 35% in Michigan, 60% to 38% in Wisconsin and 57% to 40% in Pennsylvania). Should those Pennsylvania numbers hold, they would reflect a significant shift in Trump’s favor compared with by-mail ballots cast in the 2020 election: Biden carried 76% of those votes to Trump’s 23%, according to the state’s election results.

Three-quarters or more of likely voters in each of the three states polled say they’re at least somewhat confident that the votes in their state will be accurately cast and counted in this year’s election. A near-universal 95% or more of Harris supporters in each state express confidence, compared with roughly 6 in 10 Trump supporters in each state.

Interviews were conducted October 23-28, 2024, online and by telephone with registered voters, including 726 voters in Michigan, 819 in Pennsylvania and 736 in Wisconsin. Likely voters include all registered voters in the poll weighted for their predicted likelihood of voting in this year’s election. Results among likely voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points; it is 4.8 points among likely voters in Wisconsin.

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