The race for Michigan continues to be tight between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, with no clear favorite emerging in the polls less than three weeks before Election Day.
The Great Lakes State is among several battleground contests that have the potential to tip the 2024 presidential election. While part of the “blue wall” group of states that have voted for Democrats in presidential elections since 1992, Trump may have a chance to flip Michigan next month, thanks in part to the support he has received from key voter demographics like union workers.
Harris is being threatened in blue wall states in part due to the criticism the Biden administration has received over its handling of the war in Gaza. Surveys have suggested that voters who take issue with Harris’ policies toward Israel are planning to vote for Green Party nominee Jill Stein come November. The so-called “protest vote” could significantly hurt Harris’ chances in Michigan, which is home to the largest share of Arab Americans (4 percent of the population) out of any state.
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Harris was in Detroit on Tuesday night for an interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God as part of her effort to mobilize Black voters in swing states ahead of the November 5 election. During the hourlong sit-down, the vice president highlighted her record as prosecutor and former senator while also painting her Republican opponent as a threat to democracy.
Harris and Trump are set to visit Michigan on Friday. Harris will make stops in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Oakland County ahead of a rally on Saturday in Detroit. Trump is holding a rally in Detroit on Friday night.
Polling site FiveThirtyEight finds Harris leading Trump by just 0.7 percentage points on average in Michigan. The latest tracking includes a poll released by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on Wednesday, in which the candidates were tied in the state at 47 percent based on the responses of 682 likely voters. In that poll, Stein received less than 0.5 percent of the total vote.
In a poll released Tuesday by SoCal Strategies, Harris was up by 1 point (49 percent to 48 percent) on Trump. That survey, which includes responses of 692 likely voters, was sponsored by On Point Politics and Red Eagle Politics, with the latter flagged by FiveThirtyEight as a “partisan sponsor for the Republican Party.”
In Michigan, Trump was found ahead by 1 point in a poll conducted internally by his campaign team and was published October 10.
In an ActiVote poll conducted from September 15 to October 9, however, Harris was up by 2 points, leading Trump 51 percent to 49 percent.
FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast model puts Michigan in its “toss-up” category, as does RealClearPolling, which finds Trump ahead by 1 percentage point on average across statewide polling.
Pollster Nate Silver gives Harris a higher chance of securing Michigan and its 15 electoral votes. Per Silver’s latest election forecast, the vice president has a 55.6 percent chance of taking the Great Lakes State, while Trump has a 44.4 percent chance.
Silver also ranks Michigan as having the second-highest chance of tipping the election next month. The state holding the most weight, according to the pollster, is Pennsylvania, which has 19 electoral votes and a 28 percent chance of deciding the next president. Michigan, per Silver’s model, has an 18 percent chance.
Newsweek reached out to the Harris and Trump campaigns via email Wednesday night for comment.
