Democrats are counting on three swing states and their 44 electoral votes to deliver the White House to Kamala Harris in 26 days.
Yet voters in Michigan and Wisconsin — two of the three so-called blue-wall states the veep is counting on to secure her promotion — prefer Donald Trump, according to new polling from Quinnipiac University conducted Oct. 3 through 7.
In Michigan, where 15 electoral votes are at stake, half of the 1,007 likely voters surveyed support the former president in a multi-candidate race.
Harris is 3 points behind at 47%, and Libertarian Chase Oliver and independent Cornel West have 1% backing.
Trump’s lead comes down to a marginal edge with independents (48% to 46%), a huge lead with voters without college degrees (65% to 33%) and an 8-point lead with voters under 35 years of age (51% to 43%).
When just Trump and Harris are offered as options, the former president has majority support: 51% to 47%.
Harris was up by 5 in the state in September’s Q poll, suggesting a massive trend going the Republican’s way.
And it apparently is going downballot also, with Senate candidate Mike Rogers tied at 48% with Democratic nominee Rep. Elissa Slotkin in both the overall sample and the subset of independents. Rogers could be the first Republican senator from the Wolverine State this century.
In Wisconsin’s multi-candidate ballot test, 48% of 1,073 likely voters polled prefer Trump, giving him a 2-point lead over the veep’s 46%, while Green Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver each draw 1%.
The man from Mar-a-Lago also holds a 2-point lead in a two-way ballot, 49% to 47%.
Trump reversed Harris’ 1-point lead in the Badger State in September’s poll, and again it’s thanks to independents. Among those voters, he’s up 48% to 43%. He’s also above 50% with voters between 35 and 64 years old.
Senate candidate Eric Hovde, looking to unseat Democratic perennial Sen. Tammy Baldwin, still has some work to do to flip that seat. He’s running behind, 50% to 46%, with both the electorate at large and independents.
Meatloaf once sang, “Two out of three ain’t bad,” and that axiom applies to this trio of polls, which shows Harris up slightly in pivotal Pennsylvania among 1,412 likely voters polled.
But Trump is narrowing the gap compared with September, cutting what was a 6-point lead in half, taking 46% of the vote to 49% for Harris in the multi-candidate mix, with Stein and Oliver at 1% each.
Trump may be trailing overall, but he does lead with independents among the larger field: 47% to 43%.
The race is tighter still as a two-way contest (49% to 47%), with Trump up 6 points with indys in that scenario. If voters rule out third-party spoilers, it’s to the former president’s advantage.
Vote tabulation in the Keystone State will be worth watching next month. While Trump is +10 with Election Day voters (52% to 42%), Harris’ staggering 42-point lead with mail voters (69% to 27%) will ensure Republicans won’t feel confident declaring victory on the strength of early returns.
The Q poll presents sobering news for Senate hopeful Dave McCormick, who is down by 8 points as he was in last month’s survey, despite being tied with independents; 10% of Republicans say they intend to vote for Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey. Other recent polls had seen the businessman closing the gap with Casey.
