Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in Michigan by 3 points in final Detroit Free Press poll
A final Free Press poll of likely Michigan voters ahead of Tuesday's election showed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris with a 3-percentage-point lead over Republican former President Donald Trump fueled by growing support among women and Black voters but still within the survey's plus or minus 4-point margin of error.
Coming on the heels of a poll of the state done by USA TODAY and Suffolk University that showed Trump ahead by a mere 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 by both campaigns this year, remains a toss-up.
The poll, done by EPIC-MRA of Lansing for the Free Press and its media partners, showed 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, for 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's not sure he has seen before. "It's an unusual election," he said.
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While the poll was good news for Harris — her level of support in EPIC-MRA's polls grew by 3 percentage points from where it was in August, and Trump's fell by 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 percentage 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 percentage of her supporters who ranked themselves as highly motivated to vote for her was strong at 78% but still slightly trailed that of Trump's supporters, at 84%.
Then there is the fact that Trump is seen as having outperformed the 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 come closer, Harris' message has resonated and that Trump's level of support may have plateaued.
Her support among Black voters, a key constituency in Michigan, jumped by 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 lagged Trump, who had 50% to her 44% but that 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.
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And while she still lagged among men, with 42% to Trump's 48%, her support among women grew 5 points from August, with her leading the former president among that typically larger voting bloc 53%-42%.
"(Support from) Black men may no longer be a problem (for Harris) with what (former President Barack) Obama has done and (former first lady) Michelle Obama has done," said Porn, referring to recent campaign visits by both to the state. "I expected she had room to grow with the Black vote."
If elected, Harris, a former U.S. senator and California attorney general, would be the first woman, first Black woman and first woman of South Asian descent to be U.S. president. Trump, a former TV host, real estate mogul and businessman, is attempting to become the first former president to be reelected since Grover Cleveland in 1892.
Harris became the Democratic nominee this summer after Biden, beset by questions about his age and poor poll numbers, dropped out of the race but quickly consolidated the Party behind her.
Support for Kennedy, Stein looks to be having an effect
In taking a narrow lead in this latest poll, Harris has likely had some help from the fact that Kennedy's name remains on the ballot despite the fact that he has dropped out.
Among self-described Republicans, 5% said they were still voting for Kennedy, as did 6% of the 11% of voters who described themselves as independents. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kennedy's request that he be removed from ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin after dropping out after the deadline for doing so.
But there also appeared to be a third-party threat to Harris' chances as well from Stein, the Green Party candidate who has embraced the "Abandon Harris" movement working to attract voters in Michigan's large Arab American and Muslim communities looking to punish Harris and the Biden administration for not demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and implementing an Israeli arms embargo.
When asked what was the most defining issue of the election for them, 75% of Stein's supporters said foreign policy, an indication that the conflict in Gaza was a motivating factor given that only 5% of those polled overall listed foreign policy as such a high priority.
Stein didn't have nearly the level of support among self-described Democrats (1%) that Kennedy did with Republicans and Harris' 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% of 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 Michigan, or about 51,000 votes in a race Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost to Trump by 10,704 votes.
A split over which candidate is better able to tackle issues
Asked the question about which issue most motivated them to vote, 30% overall cited inflation and the cost of living, a topic Trump and Republicans have been hammering the Democrats on since inflation — which has subsided in the last year — took off during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Among Trump supporters, 47% said it was their biggest single motivating factor.
But Harris, who has fought back on the issue by saying she will fight price gouging and that her rival's plans for much higher import tariffs will drive up consumer prices instead of bringing them down and creating jobs as he claims, appears to have convinced some voters she is to be trusted in battling inflation. The poll showed 45% of respondents overall believed she is better positioned to address the issue compared with 49% who say Trump is.
On the issues, 18% of respondents said abortion was their top issue, a key topic for Harris and second only to 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 railed about a surge in encounters with undocumented immigrants along the Southern border before recent 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 nominee's fitness for office and that motivated 16% of Harris' voters (who presumably don't believe Trump is fit to be president but she is) to 4% of Trump's (who don't believe Harris is fit for the job but he is).
There were some wide gaps, however, in terms of who voters thought would be better able to handle some issues.
Trump, for instance, got much higher marks as better able to end the war in Ukraine (53%-39%), securing the Southern border (59%-36%) and ending 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%).
Map: Where all 2024 presidential, vice presidential visits took place in Michigan
How each is doing in different regions, among different groups
Among the different age groups in Michigan, the poll indicated that Harris is doing better among voters age 18 to 34 (50% to Trump's 39%) and voters over 65 (58%-38%) while he is leading among those 35-49 (48%-40%) and 50-64 (51%-45%). In each of those age brackets, Harris has seen some improvement in the last two months.
Trump still holds a considerable lead, 51%-42%, among voters who did not go to college; among those who did, Harris' lead is larger, 54%-39%. (A word of caution about all of these subgroups, however: Since they involve numbers of voters that are less than the full 600 sample, the margins of error for each would be higher, and in some cases considerably 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 of the state, Harris had a substantial lead of 54%-38%, 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, west and northern Michigan, as well as the area around Bay City and the Thumb, 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 staked out a 64%-35% edge over Trump among the 31% of voters who said they have already voted either by absentee ballot or at the polls utilizing early in-person voting. Among absentee voters overall, Harris had a 66%-31% edge, while Trump led 52%-38% by those who planned to vote at the polls, suggesting that, as we saw in 2020, it's quite possible the former president will have a lead, and possibly a sizable one, in the early vote count statewide that the absentee vote, as it is tallied, could cut into over hours or even days.
Contact Todd Spangler: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Harris leads Trump in Michigan by 3 points: Free Press poll