A poll shows Donald Trump has narrowed Kamala Harris‘ lead, which is well within the margin of error, in a key battleground state in the presidential race.
Trump and Harris are relentlessly vying for Pennsylvania’s 19 Electoral College votes—more than any other swing state—because they could determine the outcome of the election.
In 2016, the former president narrowly won Pennsylvania against Hillary Clinton, but in 2020 President Joe Biden flipped the state back. In Pennsylvania, this year’s neck-and-neck race is expected to be decided by a few thousand votes, and both major party candidates have been repeatedly campaigning there to court voters.
A UMass Lowell/YouGov survey of 800 likely Pennsylvania voters published Thursday morning found Harris with a 1 percentage point lead over Trump, 46 percent to 45 percent. The poll, which was conducted between October 2 and 9, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.97 percentage points, placing the vice president’s lead well within that margin. Green Party candidate Jill Stein received 1 percent support, while 6 percent of respondents said they were undecided.
The poll shows Harris’ lead has shrunk by 1 percentage point, while her overall support dropped 2 percentage points, since the last similar poll, which was conducted between September 11 and 19 and found that Harris had 48 percent support to Trump’s 46 percent. That UMass Lowell/YouGov survey of 800 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Newsweek reached out via email to the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment on Thursday.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon/Jacquelyn Martin
The October poll, conducted just three weeks before Election Day, found Harris leading among younger voters ages 18 to 44, 53 percent to Trump’s 36 percent. Trump appeals more to voters ages 45 to 64, 52 percent to Harris’ 39 percent. Harris overwhelmingly leads among Black voters, with 80 percent support versus Trump’s 15 percent, while Trump holds a narrower lead among white voters, 51 percent to Harris’ 41 percent.
Most Pennsylvania polls show a narrow margin between the Republican and Democratic nominees, with leads fluctuating within the margin of error, making the state a true toss-up.
A recent New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll of 857 likely voters in the Keystone State found Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points.
The poll, conducted between October 7 and 10, shows Harris with 50 percent of the vote, compared with Trump’s 47 percent. However, Harris’ lead is within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. In addition, the poll reported that 3 percent of respondents didn’t know whom they supported or refused to answer.
Meanwhile, an Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey of 1,000 likely Pennsylvania voters found Trump leading Harris by 1 percentage point, with 49 percent of respondents backing him and 48 percent supporting Harris. The poll, conducted between October 5 and 8, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Harris’ clearest path to victory next month would be to win the three “blue wall” battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, barring any shock results elsewhere. Trump’s most efficient path to 270 Electoral College votes would be to win the swing states of North Carolina and Georgia while flipping Pennsylvania.
Aggregate polls, updated daily with new data, show an extremely tight race in the state. RealClearPolitics has Trump leading by 0.5 percent, 47.9 percent to Harris’ 47.4 percent. On the other hand, FiveThirtyEight shows Harris leading by the same percentage, 48 percent to Trump’s 47.5 percent.
Other aggregates, such as those from The Hill and The New York Times, show Harris with a lead of 0.3 percent and 1 percentage points, respectively.
