Battle around swing states intensifies for Trump and Harris

The fight for the president’s palace between Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, is tied in the swing states, a Wall Street Journal survey showed on Friday.

The poll showed Harris with marginal 2 percentage point leads in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, Trump up 6 points in Nevada and 1 in Pennsylvania, and the two tied in North Carolina and Wisconsin. The poll of 600 registered voters in each state conducted on September 28-October 8 had a margin of error of 4 percentage points in each state.

The neck-and-neck results echo other polls reflecting a tight race before the November 5 election as Americans grapple with concerns about the economy, immigration, women's rights and the nation's democratic values in picking between the two candidates.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week also found Trump and Harris locked in a close race nationally, with Harris marginally ahead 46% to 43%.

Surveys of swing state voters can be an important indicator given that state-by-state results of the Electoral College will determine the winner, with the seven battleground states likely being decisive.

Harris, 59, would win a narrow majority in the Electoral College if she captures the states where she holds an edge in the WSJ's poll.

Trump, 78, is making his third consecutive White House bid after losing to President Joe Biden in 2020. He continues to falsely blame that loss on widespread voter fraud while facing criminal charges, which he denies, over efforts to overturn the election results.

Harris became the Democrats' candidate after Biden dropped his re-election bid in July. She is a former US senator, California attorney general and local prosecutor who is seeking to present a fresh vision for America and to revive Democrats' coalition of young voters, people of color and suburban women while also siphoning off some Republican voters.

"This thing is a dead heat,” Republican pollster David Lee, who conducted the survey with Democrat Michael Bocian, told the Journal.

More voters said they backed Trump on the economy and immigration while more said Harris would do a better job when it comes to housing, healthcare and caring about people like them, the WSJ poll found.