Pennsylvania 2024 Trump-Harris Polls: Race Is Tied In 2 New Polls Of Key Battleground
by Sara Dorn · ForbesTopline
The race in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania is closer than any other swing state contest headed into Election Day, according to polling averages that show a neck-and-neck race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in the swing state that could decide the winner of the 2024 election.
Key Facts
The polling averages are close to tied, with a narrow Trump edge: Trump leads by 0.1 points in Pennsylvania in FiveThirtyEight’s average.
Trump is ahead by one point, 49%-48%, in an Emerson College/The Hill poll out Monday (margin of error 3 points), and they’re tied at 48% in the New York Times/Siena poll of likely voters released Sunday (margin of error 3.5 points), a slight dip in Harris’ three-point lead in a pair of New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College polls released Oct. 12.
The two candidates have the same 48%-48% deadlock in a Morning Consult poll also out Sunday.
Harris leads in three other polls published last week, Trump is ahead in three, and two others show them tied.
Harris is up by two points, 50%-48%, in a Marist survey that includes undecided voters who are leaning toward a candidate (margin of error 3.4 points), and by one point, 48%-47%, in a Washington Post poll (margin of error 3.1 points), both released Friday, with the Post poll representing no movement in the race since its September survey.
Trump is up 50%-49% in a two-way Fox News poll of likely Pennsylvania voters out Wednesday—well within the three-point margin of error—and he has a 47%-46% lead in a Quinnipiac poll of likely voters published Wednesday (margin of error 2.1 points, and respondents could choose other candidates).
Harris also holds a narrow 49%-48% edge in a Cooperative Election Study poll released this week (3,685 respondents, polled as part of a national study by universities conducted by YouGov).
Meanwhile, the race is dead even at 48%-48% in a CNN/SSRS poll of likely voters out Wednesday—while only 8% said they’re undecided or may change their minds—and CBS/YouGov found a similar 49%-49% tie in a likely voter poll released Tuesday.
Turnout could play a role: Trump had 47%-46% lead in a Monmouth poll of all registered voters published Wednesday, but the race is tied at 48%-48% among respondents who are extremely motivated to vote, and Harris leads 48%-47% among people who have voted in most or all general elections since 2014 (margin of error 3.8 points).
Pennsylvania has more electoral votes, 19, than any other battleground, and Pennsylvanians routinely pick winners, voting for 10 of the last 12 White House winners—the candidate who has won Pennsylvania has also won Michigan and Wisconsin (the three states together are known as the “blue wall”) in the past eight elections.
Pennsylvania is far more likely to tip the election than any other battleground state, according to statistician Nate Silver’s election forecasting model, which also found both candidates have a more 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—who is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania— reversed the trend in 2020, with the state to putting him over the 270-vote threshold needed to win the Electoral College
Pennsylvania is also significant 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 white, working-class voters, with nearly 75% of the population identifying as non-Hispanic white—a demographic Trump typically performs well with, though Harris has made inroads with white voters compared to Biden’s performance in 2020, trailing Trump by only three points nationally, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, after Trump won the demographic by 12 points in 2020.
What To Watch For
Results could take several days to tabulate, but wait times could be shorter since fewer voters are expected to vote by mail than they did during the Covid-19 pandemic. Polls close at 8 p.m. EST.
Surprising Fact
No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania since 1948. If Harris wins Pennsylvania, and the trend of also winning Wisconsin and Michigan holds, she’s all but certain to win the White House.
Key Background
If Trump maintains his leads in Arizona and Georgia, and wins North Carolina, as he’s expected to, he would need just 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 2024 vote, followed by inflation at 78% and the state of democracy at 70%, according to a CBS/YouGov survey. The results are on par with the national electorate, according to a recent Pew Research survey of registered voters that found 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 previous endorsement of a fracking ban—Pennsylvania is the country’s second-largest natural gas producer. “Fracking? She’s been against it for 12 years,” Trump said during the debate in Philadelphia. Harris, who said during a 2019 CNN climate town hall while she was running for president “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” has said she’s since changed her stance. During a debate with Trump, Harris said she made “very clear” in 2020 that she’s against a fracking ban, presumably referring to her vice presidential debate with Mike Pence, and noted the Inflation Reduction Act opened new gas leases—reiterating a stance she took in a CNN interview last month. Harris didn’t actually say she changed her own position on the issue during the 2020 debate—instead she said then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden “will not end 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, but Republicans hold the majority in the Senate.
Further Reading
How Kamala Harris’ Views On Fracking Have Changed—After Backtracking On Ban (Forbes)
Trump Vs. Harris 2024 Polls: Harris Up By 1 Point—As Her Lead Plateaus Before Debate (Forbes)