F&M Stories
F&M Poll: Among Likely Voters, Trump and Harris Virtually Tied
With fewer than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election, Republican Donald Trump and Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris are virtually tied, 50% to 49%, in Pennsylvania, according to the Franklin & Marshall Poll. This result has a margin of error plus or minus 5 percentage points.
“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, says.
Likely voters are registered voters who report being “certain” to vote and being “very interested” in the political campaign, the pollster says. It’s the closest measure to what voters are thinking.
According to this last poll of the year, Harris is favored, 48% to 44%, among all registered voters, which is within the poll’s sample error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey leads GOP opponent Dave McCormick, 49% to 48%, among likely voters, but among all registered voters, Casey’s lead expands, 49% to 42%.
“The current electoral environment seems to offer more advantages for Republicans than Democrats,” Yost says. He cited 43% of respondents who say they are “worse off” financially than a year ago.
“Voters are much less optimistic about their personal financial circumstances today than they were at the time of the last presidential election in October 2020,” Yost says.
For 35% of respondents, the economy -- including unemployment and higher gas and utility prices --remains the most important and often mentioned problem facing the state, Yost says,
F&M’s Center for Opinion Research conducted the poll between Oct. 9-20, recording the views of 794 registered voters—351 Democrats, 326 Republicans and 118 independents.
Visit F&M Poll’s Key Findings for the complete poll results and analysis of voters’ sentiments on the latest issues and job approval ratings of elected officials.
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