Vice President Harris and former President Trump are in a tough race in pennsylvaniaMostly unchanged from July. This is despite a series of newsworthy events since then, including the Democratic National Convention, a presidential debate and a second Trump assassination attempt.
A new Fox News poll of Pennsylvania voters shows Harris leads by slight margin Trump leads by 2 points (50-48%) among registered voters, while the race is tied at 49% among likely voters.
The July results, conducted shortly after President Biden withdrew and endorsed Harris but before she was decisively nominated, were deadlocked at 49% each. But even in March, when Biden was the presumptive nominee, the contest was evenly matched.
Rallyers in post-industrial Pennsylvania say working class will come to Harris’ home
Since July, Harris has increased her lead among women (9 points), non-white voters (+8), and voters under 30 (+17). His support has remained steady amid two other sources of strength: college graduates and urban voters.
92 percent of Harris supporters are confident about their vote compared to 86% of Trump supporters.
Trump’s best groups include men, whites without college degrees, independents and rural voters. Since July he has nearly doubled his lead among men and a small group of independents.
Another reason the race is close is that Trump has narrowed Harris’ lead among suburban voters (+2). This is largely due to the large gender gap among suburban voters: suburban men favor Trump by 14 points (suburban women favor Harris by 17 points). Meanwhile, Harris has successfully alienated disaffected Republicans: She has 1 in 4 non-MAGA Republicans supporting her.
In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the Keystone State by less than a point, while Biden’s victory in 2020 was by just over a point.
In the expanded ballot (including third-party candidates), Harris has a 2-point lead among registered voters while Trump leads by 1 point among likely voters.
All results from the Harris-Trump head-to-head and extended ballot are within the margin of error.
“Pennsylvania is not breaking open and shouldn’t be expected to,” says Chris Anderson, a Democratic pollster who conducted the Fox News poll with Republican Daron Shaw. “Both candidates have some way to go to build their base and whoever does a better job there may determine who wins the state.”
The economy is the top issue for voters in this election and a majority of Pennsylvanians have a negative view of the economy (71%).
More voters think Trump can handle the economy better than Harris by 6 points. Still, that’s half the advantage he had on this issue in April (+12 points over Biden).
Trump does the best job on immigration and border security (+17) and is also trusted more to make the country safe (+5).
Harris is considered better able to deal with abortion on the basis of 21 points. She also gets nods on helping the middle class (8 points), defending democracy (+7), and fighting for people like you (+5).
No one has a clear edge in bringing about the needed change (Harris +3)
Harris has better favorable ratings than the former president – 48% favorable versus 51% unfavorable for a 3-point net negative rating. Trump is in the water by 9 points (45% vs. 54%). The situation is similar among the vice-presidential candidates: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s rating is even (44% vs. 44%), while Ohio Senator J.D. Vance is in negative territory with 13 points (39% vs. 52%) . ,
Biden’s favorability rating is underwater by 16 points (42% vs. 58%).
In the Pennsylvania Senate race, democratic candidate Bob Casey has a 9-point lead over Republican challenger David McCormick (53% to 44% among both registered and likely voters). McCormick has narrowed the gap to 4 points since July when he was down 13 (55-42%).
This reversal can mostly be attributed to a 13-point shift among men and a decline in support for Casey among independent candidates. In July, men favored Casey by 6 points, while today they favored McCormick by 7 points, while in the summer independents favored Casey by 18 points and now it is a spread of 5 points.
About 10% of Casey’s supporters split their tickets and supported Trump in the presidential race, while only 4% of McCormick’s supporters went in favor of Harris.
Some more things…
– Governor Josh Shapiro is popular, as 62% approve of the job he is doing while a third (36%) disapprove. A majority of Democrats (92%) and more than half of independents (53%) support him while two-thirds of Republicans (65%) disapprove.
– A majority of Pennsylvanians favor the use of fracking for oil and gas production, including 8 in 10 Republicans, 6 in 10 independents and 4 in 10 Democrats.
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This Fox News poll, conducted September 20-24, 2024, under the joint direction of Beacon Research(D) and Shaw & Company Research(R) includes interviews with a sample of 1,021 Pennsylvania registered voters randomly selected from the statewide voter file . Respondents spoke to live interviewers on landlines (134) and cellphones (616) or completed the online survey after receiving a text (271). The margin of sampling error for the results based on the registered voter sample is ±3 percentage points and for the subsample of 775 likely voters it is ±3.5 percentage points. To ensure that the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population, weights are typically applied to age, race, education, and region variables. Likely voters are based on a probabilistic statistical model that depends on past voting history, interest in the current election, age, education, race, ethnicity, church attendance, and marital status.
