Harris leads Trump in Michigan by 3 points: Free Press poll

On November 6, 2024By Littum

A final Free Press poll of likely voters in Michigan ahead of Tuesday’s election showed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris with a 3 percentage point lead over Republican former President Donald Trump, driven by growing support among women and black voters , but still within the survey’s plus or minus 4-point margin of error.

On the heels of a poll of the state by USA TODAY and Suffolk University that showed Trump ahead by just four-tenths of a percentage point, the new poll means Michigan, a key battleground state in the last two presidential elections and the site of dozens of visits from both campaigns this year, remains a toss-up.

The poll, conducted by EPIC-MRA of Lansing for the Free Press and its media partners, found Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, leading Trump 48-45%. Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Natural Law Party candidate who has dropped out of the race but remains on the ballot, each got 3% of support, and independent Cornel West got 1%.

The number of respondents who were undecided was so small in the poll, of which 600 likely voters were surveyed between last Thursday and this Monday, that it amounted to less than 1%, something EPIC-MRA pollster Bernie Porn said he is not sure about on he has seen before. “It’s an unusual choice,” he said.

While the poll was good news for Harris — her approval rating in EPIC-MRA’s polls was up 3 percentage points from where it was in August, and Trump’s was down 1 point, and it was the first time the Democrats had a lead in the presidential race in the firm’s polls since last November – it came with some caveats.

The share of voters with a favorable view of her was slightly lower than those with a favorable view of Trump, 45% to his 47%, for one. The share of her supporters who ranked themselves as very motivated to vote for her was strong at 78%, but still slightly behind Trump’s supporters at 84%.

Then there’s the fact that Trump is considered to have outperformed polls in Michigan in 2016, when he won the state, and 2020, when he lost it, and could do so again by turning out his base.

But there were also strong indications that as the election has drawn closer, Harris’ message has resonated and that Trump’s support level may have declined.

Her support among black voters, a key constituency in Michigan, has risen 18 points since August, and the poll showed her leading Trump among that bloc 87%-5%, far closer to the level of support Biden received in 2020. Among white voters, she trailed Trump, who had 50% to her 44%, but the 4-point margin was closer than the 55%-44% edge Trump had over Democratic President Joe Biden in Michigan with white voters in 2020. according to exit polls.

And while she still lagged among men, at 42% to Trump’s 48%, her support among women grew 5 points from August, when she led the former president among the typically larger voting bloc, 53%-42%.

“(Support from) Black men may no longer be an issue (for Harris) with what (former President Barack) Obama has done and (former first lady) Michelle Obama has done,” Porn said, referring to recent campaign visits by both to the state. “I expected her to have room to grow with the black voice.”

If elected, Harris, a former US senator and California attorney general, would be the first woman, the first black woman and the first woman of South Asian descent to become US president. Trump, a former TV host, real estate mogul and businessman, is seeking to become the first former president to be re-elected since Grover Cleveland in 1892.

Harris became the Democratic nominee this summer after Biden, plagued by questions about his age and poor poll numbers, dropped out of the race but quickly consolidated the party behind him.

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Support for Kennedy, Stein appears to be having an effect

In taking a narrow lead in this latest poll, Harris likely had some help from the fact that Kennedy’s name remains on the ballot despite his dropout.

Among self-identified Republicans, 5% said they still voted for Kennedy, as did 6% of the 11% of voters who described themselves as independents. On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court rejected Kennedy’s request that he be removed from the ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin after dropping out after the deadline to do so.

But there also appeared to be a third-party threat to Harris’ chances from Stein, the Green Party candidate which has embraced the “Abandon Harris” movement working to attract voters in Michigan’s large Arab American and Muslim communities that want to punish the Harris and Biden administrations for not demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and implementing an Israeli arms embargo.

When asked what was the most crucial issue in the election for them, 75% of Stein’s supporters said foreign policy, an indication that the conflict in Gaza was a motivating factor, as only 5% of top respondents listed foreign policy as such high priority.

Stein did not have nearly the level of support among self-described Democrats (1%) that Kennedy had with Republicans, and Harris’s level of support among Democrats was 95% to Trump’s 3%. (Among Republicans, Trump led Harris 89%-4%). But Stein had a significantly higher level of support at 13% among self-described independents, a potentially important group of swing voters among whom Harris had a 4-point lead over Trump 40%-36%.

Eight years ago, Stein got about 1% of the vote in Michiganor about 51,000 votes in a race that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost to Trump by 10,704 votes.

A split over which candidate is better able to tackle issues

When asked which issue most motivated them to vote, 30% overall cited inflation and the cost of living, an issue Trump and Republicans have hammered Democrats on since inflation — which has slowed in the past year — picked up during and immediately following the global COVID-19 pandemic. Among Trump supporters, 47% said it was their single biggest motivator.

But Harris, who has fought back on the issue by saying she will fight price falls and that her rival’s plans for much higher import tariffs will drive up consumer prices rather than bring them down and create jobs, as he claims, appears to have convinced some voters that she can be trusted in the fight against inflation. The survey found that 45% of respondents overall believed she is better positioned to solve the problem, compared to 49% who say Trump is.

On the issues, 18% of respondents said abortion was their most important issue, a key issue for Harris, followed by inflation, with 32% of her supporters saying it motivated their vote; another 12% selected as their top concern immigration, a key issue for Trump, who has talked about an increase in encounters with undocumented immigrants along the southern border before the latest crackdowns, with 25% of his supporters saying it was the driving force behind their vote for him. Another 10% said their main issue was either the candidate’s fitness for office, and that motivated 16% of Harris’ voters (who presumably don’t think Trump is fit to be president, but she is) to 4% of Trump’s (who doesn’t believe) Harris is fit for the job, but he is).

However, there were some big gaps in who voters thought would be better able to handle some issues.

Trump, for example, received much higher marks as better able to end the war in Ukraine (53%-39%), secure the southern border (59%-36%) and end hostilities in the Middle East (48%-36%). . Harris was seen as better able to protect abortion rights (64%-23%) and protect Medicare and Social Security benefits (52%-39%).

How each fares in different regions, among different groups

Among the various age groups in Michigan, the poll found Harris doing better among voters ages 18 to 34 (50% to Trump’s 39%) and voters over 65 (58%-38%), while leading among the 35- 49 years. (48%-40%) and 50-64 (51%-45%). In each of those age groups, Harris has seen some improvement in the past two months.

Trump still has a significant lead, 51%-42%, among voters who did not attend college; among those who did, Harris’ lead is larger, 54%-39%. (But a caveat about all these subsets: Since they involve numbers of voters smaller than the full 600 samples, the margins of error for each would be higher, and in some cases significantly higher, than plus or minus 4 percentage points.)

In metro Detroit, which EPIC-MRA defines as Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and is the largest voting area in the state, Harris had a significant 54%-38% lead, far better than the 46%-43% margin she had . in August. She trailed in most of the other parts of the state except for the outer metro region, which includes the outer Detroit suburbs and Washtenaw County, where Ann Arbor is located, where she led 58%-40%.

In central, western and northern Michigan, as well as the Bay City and Thumb areas, Trump led by anywhere from 6 points (51%-45% in central Michigan) to 28 points (60%-32% around Saginaw Bay) ) .

Finally, the poll indicated Harris has a 64%-35% lead over Trump among the 31% of voters who said they have already voted either by absentee ballot or at the polls using early in-person voting. Among absentee voters overall, Harris had a 66%-31% lead, while Trump led 52%-38% of those planning to vote at the polls, suggesting that, as we saw in 2020, it is very possible that the former president will have a lead, and possibly a significant one, in the early vote count across the country that the absentee vote as it is counted could cut over hours or even days.

Contact Todd Spangler: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.