Vice President Harris and former President Trump are locked in a tight race in Pennsylvania, mostly unchanged since July. This despite the array of newsworthy events since then, including the Democratic National Convention, a presidential debate, and a second Trump assassination attempt.
The new Fox News survey of Pennsylvania voters finds Harris narrowly ahead of Trump by 2 points (50-48%) among registered voters, while the race is tied at 49% each among likely voters.
The July results, conducted shortly after President Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, but before she was conclusively the nominee, were deadlocked at 49% each. But even in March, when Biden was the presumed nominee, the contest was close to even.
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Since July, Harris has widened her lead among women (by 9 points), nonwhite voters (+8), and voters under age 30 (+17). Her support has held steady among two other sources of strength: college graduates and urban voters.
Ninety-two percent of Harris supporters are certain of their vote versus 86% of Trump supporters.
Trump’s best groups include men, Whites without a college degree, independents, and rural voters. He has nearly doubled his lead among men and the small group of independents since July.
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Another reason the race is close is Trump has minimized Harris’ edge among suburban voters (+2). This is mostly due to the large gender gap among suburban voters: suburban men support Trump by 14 points (suburban women go for Harris by 17). Meanwhile, Harris has successfully peeled off disaffected Republicans: she has 1 in 4 non-MAGA Republicans backing her.
In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by less than a point in the Keystone State, while Biden’s victory was by just over a point in 2020.
In the expanded ballot (includes third-party candidates) Harris has a 2-point edge among registered voters while Trump is ahead by 1 point among likely voters.
All results for the Harris-Trump head-to-heads and expanded ballot are within the error margin .
"Pennsylvania is not breaking open and shouldn’t be expected to," says Democratic Pollster Chris Anderson who conducts Fox News surveys alongside Republican Daron Shaw. "Both candidates have a little way to go to consolidate their bases and whoever does a better job there could determine who wins the state."
The economy is the top issue for voters this election and most Pennsylvanians have a negative view of the economy (71%).
More voters think Trump can better handle the economy than Harris by 6 points. Still, that’s half the advantage he had on the issue in April (+12 points over Biden).
Trump does best on immigration and border security (+17) and is also more trusted to make the country safer (+5).
Harris is seen as better able to handle abortion by 21 points. She also gets the nod on helping the middle class (by 8 points), protecting Democracy (+7), and fighting for people like you (+5).
Neither has a clear edge in bringing needed change (Harris +3)
Harris enjoys better favorable ratings than the former president -- 48% favorable vs. 51% unfavorable for a 3-point net negative rating. Trump is underwater by 9 points (45% vs. 54%). It plays out the same way among the vice-presidential candidates: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s rating is even (44% vs. 44%) while Ohio Sen. JD Vance is in negative territory by 13 points (39% vs. 52%).
Biden’s favorable 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 by 4 points since July when he was down by 13 (55-42%).
The reversal can mostly be attributed to a 13-point shift among men and a decrease in support for Casey among independents. In July, men supported Casey by 6 points while today they back McCormick by 7 points, while independents supported Casey by 18 points in the summer and it’s a 5-point spread now.
Some 10% of Casey backers split their ticket and back Trump in the presidential race while just 4% of McCormick supporters go for Harris.
A few more things…
-- Gov. Josh Shapiro is popular, as 62% approve of the job he’s doing while a third disapprove (36%). Most Democrats (92%) and over half of independents (53%) approve of 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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Conducted September 20-24, 2024, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with a sample of 1,021 Pennsylvania registered voters randomly selected from a statewide voter file. Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (134) and cellphones (616) or completed the survey online after receiving a text (271). Results based on the registered voter sample have a margin of sampling error of ±3 percentage points and for the subsample of 775 likely voters it is ±3.5 percentage points. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population. Likely voters are based on a probabilistic statistical model that relies on past vote history, interest in the current election, age, education, race, ethnicity, church attendance, and marital status.
