In anticipation of the next US Presidential Election, now just a little over three months away, we at Redfield & Wilton Strategies, in partnership with The Telegraph, launched last October our Swing State tracker poll.
Minnesota has been added to this week’s edition of our tracker, adding to our previous set of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
This week’s swing states tracker is our first since Joe Biden announced that he was ending his bid for re-election on Sunday. Consequently, our hypothetical voting intention poll this week pits Kamala Harris, who appears most likely to become the Democratic nominee, against Donald Trump, who last week formally accepted the Republican nomination.
Today, in our ninth edition of this tracker, our Presidential Voting Intention poll of 6,927 swing state voters finds Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris in seven out of the nine potential swing states.
In a hypothetical match-up between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included as an independent candidate, Trump leads Harris by between two and eight points in seven of the states, while Trump and Harris are tied in Wisconsin (44% each). Harris leads Trump in Minnesota by three points (44% vs 41%).
Compared to last week’s swing states polling, in which Joe Biden was prompted as the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump’s lead over Harris is wider than it was last week over Biden in both Florida (eight points, +1) and Michigan (three points, +2), while his lead remains unchanged in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s lead over Kamala Harris is narrower than it was over Biden in three states: Arizona (three points, -1), Nevada (two points, -1), and North Carolina (three points, -3).
For context, in the 2020 Presidential Election, Joe Biden carried Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Donald Trump defeated Biden in both Florida and North Carolina.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. polls between 3% and 7% in the swing states, performing best in Michigan and worst in Georgia. His vote share has decreased, falling in six of the eight states we polled last week.
Kennedy generally takes more votes from the Democratic ticket than the Republican ticket, although a marginally higher percentage of 2020 Trump voters (5%) than 2020 Biden voters (3%) in Wisconsin plan to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2024.
In a tight election, with many of these states likely to be settled by only a few thousand votes, any movement of 2020 Biden voters to Trump or 2020 Trump voters to Harris could make the key difference.
In seven of the nine swing states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania), more 2020 Biden voters are switching to Trump than 2020 Trump voters are switching to Harris. In Nevada (9%) and Wisconsin (5%), an equal number of 2020 Biden and 2020 Trump voters now intend to vote for the other party’s candidate in the 2024 election.
Swing state voters are overwhelmingly supportive of President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election in 2024.
Large majorities of voters in all nine states approve of President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election, with net support ranging from +50% (Georgia) to as high as +62% (in Wisconsin)
As it stands, pluralities of voters in all nine swing states polled (40%-46%) would prefer Kamala Harris to be the Democratic party’s nominee, while between 26% and 32% of swing state voters would prefer the party’s nominee to be someone else.
Among 2020 Biden voters, between 67% (Minnesota) and 80% (Arizona) would prefer Harris to be the Democratic nominee, rather than someone else (11%-21%).
In terms of the key issues voters say will determine how they vote in 2024, the economy remains the single most important issue for pluralities of voters in every swing state. Abortion and immigration are the second and third most commonly cited issue in each state, respectively.
When voters are asked how important various issues will be in determining how they vote in November, between 60% and 75% say the cost of living will be ‘extremely’ important, making it, by far, the most important issue. The cost of healthcare is the second most frequently sighted issue as being ‘extremely’ important in every state (52%-61%), except in Arizona where election integrity is the second most commonly selected ‘extremely’ important issue (53%).
Around half of all voters in each state consider election integrity (45%-56%), taxation (44%-54%), abortion (44%-54%), policing/crime (43%-52%) and illegal immigration (42%-51%) as ‘extremely’ important in determining their vote.
In addition to the Presidential race, we asked voters in Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, where State primaries have concluded, their Voting Intention for their respective Senate and Gubernatorial elections.
In Nevada’s Senate election, Jacky Rosen, the Democratic candidate, leads Sam Brown, the Republican candidate, 45% to 40%. Rosen’s lead has increased by one point since our poll last week. Rosen’s vote share is two points higher than Harris’ in our Presidential voting intention poll, whereas Brown lags behind Trump by five points.
In Pennsylvania’s Senate election, the incumbent Democrat, Bob Casey Jr., leads the Republican David McCormick by seven points (46% to 39%). Bob Casey Jr.’s lead is unchanged since last week, but both candidates have seen their vote share increase by two points. Casey Jr. outperforms Harris by four points, whereas McCormick polls seven points worse than Donald Trump in the state.
Meanwhile, in North Carolina’s gubernatorial election, Democratic candidate Josh Stein leads the Republican candidate, North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, by four points (38% to 34%). Stein’s vote share has increased by one point and Robinson’s vote share has decreased by two points since last week. 23% of voters in North Carolina remain, as they were last week, undecided how they will vote.
President Biden holds a negative net approval rating among voters in all swing states polled, except in Minnesota, where he has a positive approval rating of +3%.
His approval rating has deteriorated since last week in Arizona (-8%, -2), Georgia (-3%, -3), and Wisconsin (-4%, -1). During the same period, his standing has improved in Florida (-2%, +4), Michigan (-5%, +2), North Carolina (-7%, +3), and Pennsylvania (-4%, +3), while remaining unchanged in Nevada (-3%).
Vice President Harris’ approval rating is generally better than Bidens’ in our swing states tracker.
Harris has a better approval rating than Biden in Arizona (+1% to -8%), Georgia (-1% to -3%), Michigan (-3% to -5%), Minnesota (+5% to +3%), Nevada (+3% to -3%), North Carolina (-1% to -7%), Pennsylvania (-2% to -4%), and Wisconsin (-1% to -4%). Only in Florida does she have a worse approval rating than Biden (-7% to -2%).
However, Harris still holds a net negative approval rating in five of the nine states polled, while enjoying positive net approval ratings in Arizona (+1), Georgia (+1%), Minnesota (+5%), and Nevada (+3%).
Donald Trump has a positive favorability rating in four of the nine swing states: Arizona (+3%), Florida (+6%), Georgia (+7%) and Pennsylvania (+2%). He has a neutral favorability rating in North Carolina, with the same percentage of voters (45%) holding a favorable view of him as holding an unfavorable view. In Michigan (-3%), Minnesota (-5%), Nevada (-4%), and Wisconsin (-4%), Trump holds a negative net favorability rating with voters.
Donald Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance holds a positive favorability rating in five of the nine swing states (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania). He has a neutral favorability rating in Arizona and Wisconsin and a negative approval rating in Michigan (-3%) and Minnesota (-6%). Vance held a positive favorability rating in all eight states that we polled last week.
A significant minority of swing state voters (20% to 24%) have ‘neither a favorable nor an unfavorable’ view of Vance at present, while a further 15% to 22% do not know what their view of him is.
When it comes to their personal finances, pluralities of between 45% and 49% in eight of the nine swing states, and a majority of voters (53%) in Nevada, say their financial situation has worsened in the past year.
Nevertheless, a plurality of respondents (39% to 47%) in all nine states polled say that they are confident of making ends meet and covering the costs of living. In Nevada, however, 38% of voters say that they are anxious compared to 40% who are confident. This is compared to Florida and Georgia, where voters are substantially more confident (47% in both) than anxious (30% and 31% respectively) of making ends meet.
As for the future, swing state voters are somewhat more optimistic.
Pluralities of voters in Arizona (37%), Florida (39%), Georgia (41%), Nevada (36%), and North Carolina (37%) expect their financial situation to improve in the next year. A plurality of voters in Michigan (33%) now expect their financial situation to improve in the next year, an improvement on last week when the most common expectation was that one’s financial situation would worsen.
In Minnesota (31%), Pennsylvania (34%), and Wisconsin (33%), the most common response is to expect that one’s financial situation will stay the same in the next year. Between 20% and 25% now think their financial situation will worsen in the next 12 months.
Illegal immigration continues to be a major problem area for the current administration. A majority (55% to 60%) in all nine states polled say that they do not believe that the United States currently has control over its border.
More voters in all nine states trust Donald Trump more than Kamala Harris on six of the twelve issues prompted, namely the economy, inflation, immigration, policing/ crime, defense, and the war in Israel-Palestine.
Kamala Harris is more trusted than Donald Trump by voters in all nine states on healthcare, abortion, and the environment.
Voters in eight of the nine states trust Trump more on the war in Ukraine, apart from in Minnesota where marginally more voters trust Harris on this issue.
More voters in five of the nine states (Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania) trust Trump more on the rule of law, whilst more voters in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin trust Harris more on the issue.
In eight of the nine states, a plurality of voters trust Kamala Harris more on election integrity than Donald Trump. Equal percentages of voters in Georgia (38%) trust Trump and Harris more than the other on the issue of election integrity.
At the same time, more voters in all nine states either ‘strongly lean’ or ‘lean’ towards the Democratic position on the issues of healthcare, abortion, the rule of law, election integrity, and the environment. Voters in eight of the nine states also lean towards the Democratic position on the economy, alongside voters in five of nine states that lean towards the Democratic position on inflation.
More voters in six of the nine states also lean towards the Democratic party’s position on policing and crime, defense, and the war in Israel-Palestine, and voters in seven of the nine states lean towards the Democratic stance on the war in Ukraine.
More voters lean towards the Republican position on immigration in every swing state apart from Arizona, where the same percentage of voters (46%) lean towards the Republican and Democratic positions on this issue.
