Harris leads crucial swing state in new poll

The poll averages are almost equal, with a narrow advantage for Trump: In the FiveThirtyEight average, Trump is ahead by 0.1 points in Pennsylvania.

An Emerson College/The Hill poll on Monday has Trump ahead by one point, 49% to 48%, (margin of error 3 points), and the New York Times/Siena poll of likely voters has them at 48% released on Sunday (margin of error 3.5 points), a slight decline from Harris' three-point lead in two New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College polls released Oct. 12.

Harris leads in three other polls released last week, Trump is ahead in three and two others show them tied.

Harris is higher by two points, 50-48%, in a Marist poll that includes undecided voters leaning toward a candidate (margin of error 3.4 points), and higher by one point, 48-47%, in a Washington Post poll (margin of error 3.1 points), both released Friday, with the Post poll showing no movement in the race since its September survey.

Trump is up 50% to 49% in a two-way Fox News poll of likely voters in Pennsylvania on Wednesday – well within the three-point margin of error – and he has a 47% to 46% lead in one Quinnipiac poll of likely voters released Wednesday (margin of error 2.1 points, and respondents could choose other candidates).

Harris is also narrowly at 49% to 48% in a Cooperative Election Study poll released this week (3,685 respondents surveyed as part of a nationwide study of universities conducted by YouGov).

Meanwhile, the race is dead even at 48% to 48% in a CNN/SSRS poll of likely voters Wednesday – while just 8% said they were undecided or might change their mind – and CBS/YouGov found a similar 49% – In A likely voter poll released Tuesday found 49% agree.

Voter turnout could play a role: Trump led 47% to 46% among all registered voters in a Monmouth poll released Wednesday, but the race is at 48% to 48% among respondents highly motivated to vote, and Harris is ahead at 48%. -47% among people who voted in most or all parliamentary elections since 2014 (margin of error 3.8 points).

Pennsylvania has more electoral votes than any other electoral district, with 19, and Pennsylvanians regularly pick winners by voting for 10 of the last 12 White House winners – the candidate who won Pennsylvania also won Michigan and Wisconsin (the three States collectively are known as the “blue wall”) won in the last eight elections.

According to statistician Nate Silver's election prediction model, Pennsylvania is far more likely to decide the election than any other battleground state. The model also found that both candidates have a greater than 85% chance of winning the election if they secure Pennsylvania.

Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since the 1980s in the 2016 election, and Biden – who is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania – reversed the trend in 2020 by putting the state over the 270-vote threshold , which was necessary for the election victory college

Pennsylvania is also personally significant to Trump because he was shot there on July 14 while speaking at a rally near Butler.

The state has a large share of working-class white voters, with nearly 75% of the population identifying as non-Hispanic white — a demographic with which Trump typically does well, although Harris made gains among white voters compared to Biden's performance in 2020 According to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, he trails Trump by just three points nationally after Trump won the demographic by 12 points in 2020.