CV NEWS FEED // A poll conducted last week showed former President Donald Trump is narrowly leading Vice President Kamala Harris in the three hotly contested battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
According to the Trafalgar poll, Trump is leading Harris in Michigan by less than half of a percentage point – with 47.0% of the vote compared to the Democratic nominee’s 46.6%.
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Trafalgar found that Trump is also polling at 47% – a two-point lead over Harris, who is polling at 45%.
The same polling showed Trump with a one-point lead in Wisconsin – 47% to Harris’ 46%.
The New York Post noted that due to the poll’s margin of error, “each of these states remains a statistical dead heat — meaning they could ultimately go either way come Election Day.”
The Post added: “It’s worth noting that the RealClearPolitics polling average currently shows all three of these states going toward Harris, with Michigan having shifted on Aug. 29.”
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FiveThirtyEight’s polling average – which aggregates survey results from various polling firms – shows that Harris maintains a slight lead in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, within the margin of error of almost every poll.
However, Trump has increased his support in all three states in less than a week.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Harris led Trump by an average of 2.4 percentage points in Michigan on Tuesday, September 3.
On Wednesday, August 28, Harris was leading Trump there by three points using the same polling average – showing that the Republican nominee has improved by over half a percentage point in Michigan in just six days.
In Pennsylvania, Harris led Trump by 1.2 points on Tuesday, a margin down from 1.4 points six days earlier. In Wisconsin, Harris led Trump by 3.2 points Tuesday, down from 3.5 points the Wednesday before.
CatholicVote reported last week that “many critics on the right have raised concerns that a host of polls may have oversampled Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters at the expense of right-leaning voters.”
>> POLLING EXPERT: ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOES NOT FAVOR HARRIS <<
Electoral analysts widely group the three northern swing states as part of the Democratic Party’s “blue wall.”
In every presidential election from 1992 to 2012, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all voted for the Democratic nominee.
In 2016, Trump narrowly and unexpectedly defeated failed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in all three of the states – all by margins of less than one percentage point.
The trio of states made the difference in Trump’s upset Electoral College win over Clinton that year. If she had held all three of the states for the Democratic Party, Clinton would have won enough electoral votes to become president.
Analysts at the time partially attributed Trump’s carrying of the three states – all considered to be part of the country’s once manufacturing-heavy Rust Belt – to his trade policies, then considered unusual for a Republican.
