Former President Donald Trump trails Vice President Kamala Harris in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan according to a set of The New York Times/Siena College polls released Saturday.
Harris leads Trump by a margin of 50% to 46% among likely voters across the three Great Lakes states sampled in the NYT/Siena polls, falling within the margin of error of the respective surveys. Without Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Trump would lose the presidential election even if he won every remaining swing state.
“As for NYT polls in PA, MI and WI today, some of the internal numbers seem improbable–42% for Harris among non-college whites, for one [example],” veteran Democratic operative David Axelrod said on social media Saturday, reacting to the polls. “If you adjust for them, you’re probably looking at basically tied races.”
Harris becoming the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race largely cured the faltering enthusiasm her party faced going into November, according to the NYT/Siena polls.
Just 60% of Democrats reported being satisfied with the choice of candidates available this election in May, a figure that jumped to 87% in the August NYT/Siena surveys. By contrast, 74% of Republicans reported satisfaction with the candidates available to them in May, rising modestly to 79% in August.
“I’m very proud to be part of this historic moment and to hope that, yes, she does become the first African American slash Asian woman to be in the White House,” one Pennsylvania Democrat told the NYT. “I think that this is just such an exciting time and an exciting moment.”
Voters have concerns about Harris’ ideological bent, with 42% of voters reporting that Harris was too liberal for them, up from the 37% who said they felt that way about Biden in October 2023, according to the NYT.
“I think she’s more liberal. I just don’t think she’s all for the middle class,” a Michigan voter who plans to support Trump in November told the NYT. “I just see her one-sided. You know, for the rich.”
Harris has recently distanced herself from some of her past positions, such as supporting lax border enforcement, a fracking ban, and a single-payer public healthcare system, the NYT reported. Despite Harris’ attempted pivot to the middle, the new polls show that voters still trust Trump over the vice president to handle immigration and the economy.
Harris, however, leads Trump in terms of voter trust when it comes to abortion and democracy, according to the polls.
Pollsters spoke with roughly 619 people in Michigan, 661 in Wisconsin, and 693 in Pennsylvania, lending additional weight to certain Demographic underrepresented among survey respondents, such as those without a college degree, in an effort to make the results more reflective of the general population.
Polling averages compiled by the NYT show a tight race, with Harris averaging 48% support and Trump standing at 47% at the national level as of August 10. The two are tied in Pennsylvania and Harris holds slight leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to the NYT averages.
The Trump campaign, when reached for comment, flagged a slate of recent polls conducted by Insider Advantage and Trafalgar Group that show Trump leading Harris in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona, but not Michigan. Trafalgar Group significantly overestimated support for Republicans in 2022, Newsweek previously reported.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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