A new poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump locked in a neck-and-neck race for president in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, with Harris holding a narrow lead.
In the latest edition of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll released today, the vice president leads Trump 46% to 43% among registered voters, with 8% favoring someone else and 3% saying they don’t know who will get their vote.
The poll asked voters who they would vote for if the election were held today. They could choose between Harris, Trump, Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.
Of the third-party candidates, Kennedy performed best with 6%. Oliver and Stein each received support from 1% of voters.
Harris was nominated for the Democratic Party this month after President Joe Biden decided to end his campaign and endorse his running mate following a poor debate performance in June. In the first F&M poll since she was nominated, she has a similar lead to what Biden had in the spring.
In a poll released in April, Biden led Trump 42% to 40%.
Like Biden’s margin, Harris’s also appears small.
Her three-point lead is within the poll’s margin of error. While 91% of respondents said they would definitely vote, only 87% said they were certain of their presidential choice.
Voters who are still undecided about their choice still appear to be swayable: 47% say they are currently not leaning toward Harris or Trump.
This may be because both candidates struggle to gain public sympathy.
The poll found that 56% of voters have an unfavorable impression of Trump and 52% have an unfavorable opinion of Harris. About 1 in 10 voters have an unfavorable opinion of both candidates.
Overall, 46% viewed Harris favorably, while 44% of registered voters viewed Trump favorably.
Harris and Trump perform similarly among their respective bases, but Harris (40% in favor) holds a slight advantage over Trump (33%) among independent voters.
The poll also looks at what voters find positive about the various candidates.
More respondents say they believe Harris has better judgment, is more trustworthy and is closer to their views than Trump. But more voters say they believe Trump is better able to manage the economy and be commander in chief of the military.
The survey found that Harris voters support her candidacy primarily because she offers an alternative to Trump, is a champion of women’s rights, has a strong character, supports her political party and wants to defend democracy.
Trump supporters say they support him based on his economic policies, his positions on immigration and their support for the Republican Party.
US Senate Race
A survey of the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race shows three-term Democratic Senator Bob Casey won a head-to-head race against Republican Dave McCormick.
The poll showed Casey ahead of McCormick at 48 percent, up from 36 percent.
About 38% of registered voters think Casey is doing an excellent or good job as a U.S. senator. That’s slightly lower than his approval rating before his last reelection campaign in 2018, but higher than his approval rating before his reelection in 2012.
McCormick is viewed more negatively (37%) than favorably (31%) by voters in the state, though about 1 in 3 said they didn’t know enough about him to form an opinion.
The survey found that voters who support Casey most often cite partisanship, fairness, women’s rights, experience and his time in the state as reasons they support him. McCormick’s supporters cite partisanship, economic policy, fairness and immigration as reasons they support him.
How the poll was conducted
The latest Franklin & Marshall College poll includes a detailed explanation of how the survey was conducted:
The research findings presented in this press release are based on the results of interviews conducted from July 31 through August 11. The interviews were conducted at the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College on behalf of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs.
The poll was designed and conducted by the staff of the Center for Opinion Research. The data in this release represent responses from 920 registered voters in Pennsylvania, including 411 Democrats, 378 Republicans and 131 independents.
The sample of registered voters was obtained from Aristotle. All respondents in the sample were notified of the survey by mail. Interviews were completed by telephone and online, depending on the preference of each respondent.
Survey results were weighted (age, gender, education, geography, and party registration) using an algorithm to reflect the known distribution of those characteristics among state voters. Estimates for age, geography, and party registration are based on active voters within the Pennsylvania Department of State voter registration data.
The sampling error for this study is 3.8 percentage points when the design effects of the weighting are taken into account.
