Harris has Narrow Lead in Key(stone) Swing State Pennsylvania
ActiVote’s Aug 22, 2024 Pennsylvania Presidential poll shows that Vice President Harris leads former President Trump by 2.2%. The poll was among 400 likely voters, has an average expected error of 4.9%, and was in the field between August 5, 2024 and August 22, 2024 with a median field date of August 14.
Harris leads among urban voters, while Trump leads among suburban voters. Harris has a lead among rural voters. Harris leads among the younger voters, while Trump leads among older voters. Harris leads among women, while Trump leads among men. Both are supported by approximately 95% of their party, while Harris leads among independents. Trump leads narrowly among White voters, while Harris has virtually unanimous support among Black voters. Harris lead among the lower incomes, while Trump leads among the highest incomes. Trump leads among those with some college, while Harris leads among those with the lowest education level. Those with BSC+ are evenly divided.
There are two unexpected results in the categories presented: (1) Harris has a small lead among rural voters. While we would normally expect rural groups to go to Trump by a large margin, our current sample does not show that. This could simply be an outlier; (2) Harris leads by 97% among Black voters, which is by more than expected. The small unweighted sample size (5% of participants) explains why we happen to have few Black supporters of Trump in this poll.
Political Spectrum
The following table and graph show the support for Harris and Trump among left, moderate left, center, moderate right, and right voters. These groups are defined by splitting the national electorate in 5 equal sized groups of 20% each. The groups in the swing state of Pennsylvania are of slightly different sizes than the national average.
Both Harris and Trump get 91% of their core constituencies: the left and moderate left for Harris, and the right and moderate right for Trump. Trump has a 4% lead among the centrists (+20%). Due to having slightly more left-leaning voters than right leaning voters in Pennsylvania, the net effect is a small Harris lead.
Comparisons
In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by 1.2% while in 2016 Trump beat Clinton by 0.7%. Thus, a Harris lead of 2.2% is in the ballpark of those previous elections.
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