Trump gaining in polling to win the ‘Blue Wall’ states as Harris poll momentum slows

Vice president is weighed down by concerns about Gaza conflict, dampening Democratic enthusiasm

A new poll of three crucial swing states shows the 2024 race deadlocked while Kamala Harris’s momentum grinds to a crawl.

Harris trails Trump in two midwestern battlegrounds, Michigan and Wisconsin, dragged down by concerns about her ability to manage America’s role in global crises, according to a Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday. In both states, she is behind by low single digits; 50% to 47% in Michigan, and 48% to 46% in Wisconsin.

She leads the former president in Pennsylvania, however, the state analysts have suggested she could lose by not picking its governor, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate. Quinnipiac’s survey has her ahead, 49% to 46%, in Pennsylvania.

All three states are part of the “Blue Wall” — states which, from 1992 to the Trump era, supported Democrats every cycle. Trump won all three in 2016.

The vice president’s greatest polling drag appears to be her numbers on the war in the Middle East, where voters in all three states have, by considerable margins, less confidence in her leadership abilities than Donald Trump’s. The greatest gulf is in Michigan, home to substantial Arab-American, Palestinian-American and Muslim communities; Harris trails her opponent by 10 points on the issue here, 53% to 43%.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are neck-and-neck in two states key to Democratic victories (Getty)

Unsurprisingly, her greatest issue strength is on abortion. Voters trust her by double-digit margins in all three states, according to Quinnipiac, over Trump on issues of reproductive health and freedom.

There’s another important factor for both candidates to consider here: signs that Harris’s ceiling could be higher than her numbers show so far. While Harris trails her Republican opponent in Michigan and Wisconsin, Democrats are leading in Wisconsin’s Senate race and tied in Michigan, meaning the vice president is underperforming her party’s senatorial nominee by one point.

With just weeks left in the race, the polling suggests it may be time for Harris to break further away from her former running mate, Joe Biden, on issues where he too was trailing former President Trump in polling. She has done that already on the economy, by announcing several plans (such as a proposal to expand small-business and first-time homebuyer tax credits) previously not part of Biden’s 2024 re-election platform.

But it also suggests that Donald Trump is in a clear position to win the 2024 election, despite trailing his opponent in fundraising every month since she took over the Democratic ticket in July, and a debate showdown largely recognized as a victory for Harris last month.

Another poll released on Wednesday had far better news for Harris, as well as Trump’s rivals within the GOP itself.

In a survey commissioned by a Democratic strategy outfit, The Bulwark reports that Donald Trump appears to be winning only a fraction of Republican voters who went for his main rival, Nikki Haley, in this year’s GOP presidential primary. Trump won the votes of 46% of those Republicans, according to the survey, while 36% backed Harris.