Trump, Harris separated by 1 point in battleground Pennsylvania poll

Former President Trump and Vice President Harris are nearly tied in the latest Franklin & Marshall poll of Pennsylvania voters.

The survey, released Thursday, shows Trump leading Harris by 1 point, 50 percent to 49 percent, among likely voters in the key battleground state.

Among registered voters, Harris leads Trump by 4 points, 48 percent to 44 percent, which remains within the poll's margin of error.

Pollsters said the discrepancy is likely explained by demographic differences — the survey's pool of likely voters is more Republican, has fewer ideological moderates and fewer young voters.

“It’s really a toss-up and that means we don’t know who is going to win,” Berwood Yost, director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll, said in a statement.

The poll shows Trump leading Harris on questions of who’s most prepared to handle the economy, 48 percent to 42 percent, and on who will better handle the job of commander in chief of the military, 45 percent to 42 percent.

Trump’s 6-point advantage on the economy, however, has narrowed since the last poll, conducted in September, when Trump led Harris by 11 points on the economy, 50 percent to 39 percent. The August poll was similar, with 51 percent trusting Trump and 39 percent trusting Harris.

Harris, meanwhile, leads Trump on which candidate best understands the concerns of ordinary Americans, 49 percent to 41 percent; on which candidate is “closest to your views on values issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage,” 51 percent to 40 percent; on who has “the character and good judgment needed to be president,” 49 percent to 39 percent; and on who’s most honest and trustworthy, 47 percent to 36 percent.

Trump has narrowed Harris’s advantage on the question of who’s most honest and trustworthy by 5 points since the September poll, when she led by 16 points, 48 percent to 32 percent.

The poll comes less than two weeks ahead of the 2024 presidential election, which is expected to be decided largely by voters in just a small number of states where either candidate has a decent chance of winning. Pennsylvania is among the roughly seven battleground states.

In the latest Decision Desk HQ/The Hill polling average for Pennsylvania, the candidates are neck and neck, with Trump leading by 0.2 percentage points, 48.5 percent to Harris’s 48.3 percent.

The poll was conducted Oct. 9-20 and included interviews with 794 registered Pennsylvania voters, including 583 likely voters. The margin of error for registered voters is 4.3 percentage points and is 5 percentage points for likely voters.