Campaign

Harris holds slight lead over Trump in battleground Michigan survey

Vice President Harris holds a slight lead over former President Trump in the latest survey of battleground state Michigan, released Monday. 

Harris had a 2.6 point lead, 46.8 percent to 44.2 percent, over the former president among Michigan’s likely voters, according to a poll from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV. Around 8.3 percent back another candidate, while 0.7 percent were undecided. Harris’s lead was within the poll’s margin of error. 

The narrow lead is nonetheless Harris’s largest over Trump among the four polls commissioned by WDIV-TV and The Detroit News this year. In the last iteration of the survey, conducted in late August, Trump had a 1.2 point lead over Harris, 44.7 percent to 43.5 percent. 

Jobs and the economy were the top issues for Michigan voters in this month’s survey, being selected by 18 percent of respondents apiece. Second was abortion at 15 percent, while immigration was third at 14 percent. 

Trump had a 7-point lead on handling the economy, 52 percent to 45 percent, a decrease from the last version of the poll, when he led the Democratic nominee by 13 points, 52 percent to 39 percent. 


Harris is winning slightly among self-described independent likely voters in Michigan. About 40 percent of them are backing her, 39 percent are supporting Trump and 5 percent still support former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his bid and endorsed Trump in late August. 

Taken together, Michigan polls in recent weeks show an extremely tight race.

Trump had a 2.2 percentage point lead over Harris among likely Michigan voters, according to last week’s poll released by Trafalgar Group. A Cook Political Report poll released last week had Harris leading by 3 percentage points in the state. 

The latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of polls shows the candidates tied at 48 percent support in the state.

The Detroit News and WDIV-TV poll was conducted Oct. 1-4 among 600 likely voters. The margin of error was 4 points.