Kamala Harris Is Leading Majority of Battleground States: New Poll

Kamala Harris has a slight lead over Donald Trump in four of the seven election battleground states, according to a poll.
A Wall Street Journal survey of 600 registered voters in each of the main swing states shows the vice president is marginally ahead of Trump in Arizona (47 percent to 45), Michigan (47 percent to 45), Wisconsin (46 percent to 45) and Georgia (46 percent to 45) in an expanded ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates where available as options.
The poll reveals Trump has slim leads in Pennsylvania (46 percent to 45), North Carolina (46 percent to 45) and a 5-point advantage in Nevada (47 percent to 42).
The results are the latest indication that November’s race is too close to call with just over three weeks to go. All of Harris’ and Trump’s leads fall within each state’s margin of error, except in Nevada.
Under Wall Street Journal’s polling, Harris is forecast to win the election with 278 Electoral College votes, barring any shock results elsewhere.
Across the complete set of 4,200 swing-state voters, Trump leads Harris overall by 46 percent to 45.
“This thing is a dead heat and is going to come down to the wire. These last three weeks matter,” David Lee, a Republican pollster who worked on the survey with Democrat Michael Bocian, told the Wall Street Journal.
“It really could not be closer,” Bocian added. “It’s an even-steven, tight, tight race.”
The Wall Street Journal poll was conducted by the GBAO and Fabrizio Lee polling firms between September 28 and October 8 among 600 registered voters in each state. The margin of error for the full sample of 4,200 was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points and 4 percentage points for results from any one state.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.
A previous Wall Street Journal swing states poll conducted in March when President Joe Biden was leading the Democratic ticket had Trump ahead in six battleground states, with the pair tied in Wisconsin.
The October results suggest Harris has a potential path to victory through the Sun Belt swing states.
More voters in Arizona are now backing Harris over Biden by a 6-point margin, 5 points in Georgia and 4 points in North Carolina. Trump’s share has remained largely the same across the seven states since March.
It is thought that Harris’ clearest path to victory in November would be to win the three blue wall battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump’s most efficient path to 270 Electoral College votes would be to win the Sun Belt swing states of North Carolina and Georgia and flip Pennsylvania.
Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal poll shows that Trump has a significant 10-point lead over Harris (50 percent to 40) regarding who voters believe is best suited to handle the economy, the top issue this election.
Trump is also preferred on the second most important issue of immigration and border security (52 percent to 36). Voters believe Harris would be better at handling the third most important issue of abortion by a 16-point margin (51 percent to 35).