Former President Donald Trump dominates Vice President Kamala Harris in every major swing state on the question of who voters trust to handle the economy, CNN polling found Wednesday.
The poll is significant because the economy is the “most important issue” to voters, as they weigh casting their ballot, the polling found. The economy outranked other issues as most important by 20 to 30 points across all major swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Seven states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada — will decide the president, longtime Democrat adviser Doug Sosnik wrote in the New York Times. If Trump wins one or more of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Harris’s chances of obtaining 270 electoral votes become narrower.
Trump dominates Harris in the five major swing states, according to the surveys:
- Arizona: (Trump+15) – Harris 37%, Trump 52%, Neither 11%
- Georgia: (Trump+4) – Harris 44%, Trump 48%, Neither 8%
- Michigan: (Trump+5) – Harris 44%, Trump 49%, Neither 7%
- Nevada: (Trump+16) – Harris 37%, Trump 53%, Neither 9%
- Pennsylvania: (Trump+8) – Harris 42%, Trump 50%, Neither 8%
- Wisconsin: (Trump+2) – Harris 45%, Trump 47%, Neither 8%
The poll sampled 682 voters in Arizona, 617 in Georgia, 708 in Michigan, 626 in Nevada, 789 in Pennsylvania, and 976 in Wisconsin from August 23-29, 2024. The margin of sampling error in each state was up to ±4.9 percentage points.
CNN provided an analysis of Trump’s huge lead over Harris in battleground states:
Harris’ emergence as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, replacing Biden atop the party’s ticket this summer, has altered some dynamics in the race but left others intact. Economic issues, which posed a notable weak point for Biden, remain the topic most often chosen by voters when asked what matters to their choice for president; an average of 39% of likely voters across states choose the economy as their top issue, with protecting democracy next at an average of 25%. But Harris now trails Trump on trust to handle the economy by relatively smaller margins than Biden did; across the current polls, Trump is more trusted than Harris on the economy by 8 points on average. (In New York Times/Siena College polls of the same six states this spring, the same calculation yielded a 20-point Trump advantage over Biden.) Trump maintains a broad advantage as more trusted to handle immigration, while Harris has built on Biden’s lead as more trusted to handle abortion and reproductive rights, with women across these six states preferring her by an average of 27 percentage points on the issue.
Across nearly all of these states, likely voters are more apt to describe Trump than Harris as having clear policy plans to solve the country’s problems (voters split about evenly on this question in Wisconsin and Michigan), but voters in these swing states largely describe Harris’ views and policies as mainstream and Trump’s as too extreme.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
