Former President Trump is chipping away at Vice President Harris’ lead in Michigan and Wisconsin, the latest polling shows.
Harris is up 49% in Wisconsin to Trump’s 47%, according to a survey of 2,055 voters taken Sept. 21 to Sept. 26 and released Saturday by The New York Times and Siena College.
In the even more critical state of Michigan, Harris led Trump by just a point, with 48% support for her to his 47%.
Both results, within the margin of error of 2.5%, reflect a statistical dead heat in the contest and is a small but notable reversal for Harris from August, when the same poll found her leading in both states by four points.
The Saturday poll also found Trump with a six point lead in Ohio, a state he is expected to carry in the 2024 contest.
Trump’s strength is largely due to lingering voters concerns about the economy, with more than a quarter of voters telling pollsters it was their most important issue.
Voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio trust Trump to handle the issue better than Harris by a wide margin, with the former president garnering 54% support on the subject to Harris’ 42%.
Both candidates are their own biggest liabilities: 30% of voters called Harris’ honesty and personality their biggest concern.
A full 32% of voters said their biggest issue with Trump was his “behavior.”
In another warning sign for Harris, 46% of those polled said they believed Trump’s policies had helped them, compared to just 36% who said they had been hurt by them.
Only 37% of those same voters said Harris policies would help them compared to 43% who said they would be hurt by them.
The poll also found profound pessimism among swing state voters, with more than four in 10 saying they believed America’s problems were so bad under the current administration that the country was at risk of “failing as a nation.”
Trump and Harris were also neck and neck in the battleground state of North Carolina, with surveys from Fox News and CNN/SSRS released Friday each showing a statistical tie.
Trump won the Tar Heel state in 2016 and 2020, and losing there in 2024 would severely complicate his path to the White House.
Trump held a 50-49 lead against Harris among likely voters in the state according to Fox, which spoke to 991 voters from Sept. 20 to Sept. 24, while CNN surveyed 1,680 voters from Sept. 20 to Sept. 25 and found the two candidates each holding at 48% among likely voters.
Both polls were conducted after a series of damaging revelations against North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, which Republicans fear could drag down the national ticket.
“The race here will be close, but Trump still holds the edge on the issues that matter most to North Carolina voters,” pollster Daron Shaw told Fox News. “So long as they think Trump is more likely to make the country more prosperous and safer, he’s the odds-on favorite.”
Last week CNN reported Robinson once referred to himself as a “black Nazi,” expressed support for slavery, and described his own history of “peeping” on women at a public shower when he was a teenager.
Many of the remarks were made in comment section of the porn forum Nude Africa. Robinson has denied the allegations.
Both surveys showed Robinson down by double digits against his opponent, Democrat Josh Stein.
Trump has warmly embraced Robinson during the campaign, regularly comparing him to Martin Luther King Jr. When asked this week if he would pull his endorsement, the former president said, “I don’t know the situation.”
