Top line
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied in the battleground state of Pennsylvania in the latest polls released Sunday, the latest over the past week to show a tied race in the swing state that could decide the winner of the 2024 election.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a moderate session… [+] A conversation with former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, at People’s Light Theater for the Performing Arts Malvern, Pennsylvania, on October 21, 2024. (Photo by Brendan Smalowski/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images Key Facts
Harris and Trump were tied at 48% in the New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters released Sunday (margin of error 3.5 points), a slight dip on Harris’ three-point lead in a pair of New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College polls released on 12 October.
Harris leads in three other polls published last week, Trump leads in three, and two other polls show her tied.
Harris was up by two points, 50%-48%, in a 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. The two polls (margin of error, 3.1 points) were released on Friday, and the Post poll represented no movement in the race since the September poll.
Trump is up 50% to 49% in a binary Fox News poll of likely voters in Pennsylvania on Wednesday — within a three-point margin of error — and leads 47% to 46% in a Quinnipiac poll of likely voters. It was published on Wednesday (margin of error 2.1 points, respondents could choose other candidates).
Harris also has a narrow lead of 49%-48% in the Cooperative Election Study poll released this week (3,685 respondents, surveyed as part of a national study of universities conducted by YouGov).
Meanwhile, the race is dead even by 48% — 48% in a CNN/SSRS poll of likely voters on Wednesday — while just 8% said they were undecided or might change their minds — and CBS/YouGov found a similar 49%. tied at 49% in a poll of likely voters released Tuesday.
Turnout could play a role: Trump led 47%-46% in a Monmouth poll of all registered voters released Wednesday, but the race is tied at 48%-48% among respondents who are highly motivated to vote, and Harris leads at 48%. -47% among people who have voted in most or all general elections since 2014 (margin of error 3.8 points).
Polling averages are close to a tie, with Trump with a narrow lead: Trump leads by 0.2 points in Pennsylvania in the FiveThirtyEight average.
Pennsylvania has more electoral votes, 19, than any other battleground state, and Pennsylvanians routinely pick winners, voting for 10 of the last 12 White House winners—the candidate who won Pennsylvania also won Michigan and Wisconsin (the three states are known as Together as the “Blue Wall”) in the past eight elections.
Pennsylvania is more likely to tip the election than any other contested state, according to an election forecasting model developed by statistician Nate Silver, which also found that both candidates have more than an 85% chance of winning the election if they carry Pennsylvania.
Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since the 1980s in the 2016 elections, and Biden – originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania – reversed the trend in 2020, as the state put him above the threshold of 270 votes needed to win the election. college
Pennsylvania is also of great importance to Trump personally, as he was shot there while speaking at a rally near Butler on July 14.
The state has a large share of working-class white voters, with nearly 75% of the population identifying as non-Hispanic white — a demographic with which Trump typically performs well, though Harris has had inroads with white voters compared to her. Biden in 2020, trailing Trump by just three points nationally, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, after Trump won the demographic by 12 points in 2020.
Surprising fact
No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania since 1948. If Harris wins Pennsylvania, and the trend of winning Wisconsin and Michigan continues, she will almost certainly win the White House.
Main background
If Trump maintains his lead in Arizona and Georgia, and wins North Carolina, as expected, he will need only one of the “blue wall” states (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) to win the White House.
Big number
82%. That’s the share of registered voters in Pennsylvania who said the economy is a major factor in their vote in 2024, followed by inflation at 78% and the state of democracy at 70%, according to a CBS/YouGov survey. The results are on par with national voters, according to a recent Pew Research poll of registered voters, which found that 81% of registered voters rate the economy as “very important” in the election.
Main critic
Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Harris over her past support of a fracking ban — Pennsylvania is the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer. “Fracking? I’ve been against it for 12 years,” Trump said during the debate in Philadelphia. Harris, who said during a 2019 CNN climate town hall while running for president that “there’s no question that I support banning fracking,” said she She has since changed her position During a debate with Trump, Harris said she made it “very clear” in 2020 that she was against banning fracking, likely a nod. to her vice presidential debate with Mike Pence, and noted that the inflation reduction law opened up new gas leasing contracts — repeating a position she took in an interview with CNN last month. Harris did not actually say she had changed her position on the issue during the 2020 debate, instead That said, then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “would not end fracking.”
Shadow
Pennsylvania has a divided legislature. The state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, is widely popular in the state. Democrats also control the House of Representatives, but Republicans maintain the majority in the Senate.
Further reading
2024 Swing Polls: Harris narrowly leads Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin – but tied in Pennsylvania (Forbes)
How Kamala Harris’ Views on Fracking Changed – After Reversing the Ban (Forbes)
Trump vs. Harris 2024 Polls: Harris Leads by One Point – Leading Before Debate (Forbes)
