NEWSWEEK
Donald Trump is leading Kamala Harris in five of the seven key swing states which will prove vital in determining who wins the election, according to a poll.
A survey of likely voters in battleground states from AtlasIntel found that Trump is ahead in Michigan (50.6 percent to 47.2) and Pennsylvania (51 percent to 48.1).
AtlasIntel said the former president also has a “narrow” advantage in the toss-up states of Arizona (49.8 percent to 48.6), Georgia (49.6 percent to 49) and Wisconsin (49.7 percent to 48.2). Harris is leading in North Carolina (50.5 percent to 48.1) and Nevada (50.5 percent to 47.7).
AtlasIntel was named the most accurate polling group of the 2020 presidential election by 538. Trump would win the 2024 race with 290 Electoral College votes if the Republican wins all five battleground states he currently leads in their polling, with Harris on 248.
The AtlastIntel polls were conducted between September 20-25 with a margin or error of between 2-3 percentage points.
Newsweek has contacted the campaign teams for Trump and Harris for comment via email.
The AtlasIntel polling shows that Trump would win two of the so-called “blue wall” battleground states that are crucial to Harris.
Harris only needs to win the three blue wall swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan to give her the required 270 Electoral College votes to win the election, barring any shock results elsewhere.
If Trump wins just Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia in November, the former president will have enough votes to be declared the overall winner.
Trump could also win by beating Harris in the four Sun Belt swing states of Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada, and flipping just one of Wisconsin or Michigan.
The AtlasIntel survey shows Harris is ahead in North Carolina, where the poll was conducted in the wake of the controversy surrounding the Trump-endorsed North Carolina gubernatorial hopeful Mark Robinson.
Robinson was recently accused of describing himself as a “Black Nazi” on a pornographic website’s message board more than a decade ago, among other controversies.
There have been questions as to whether Trump’s campaign in the crucial swing state of North Carolina will be damaged by his association with Robinson.
David B. McLennan, a political science professor and pollster at Meredith University, previously told Newsweek that Trump may be “somewhat inoculated” from Robinson’s controversies because of the state’s history of ticket-splitting.
McLennan added that in the tight race, even the “loss of a few percentage points by Trump could matter” in North Carolina.
The AtlasIntel swing state surveys polled 946 likely voters in Arizona, 1,200 likely voters in Georgia, 918 likely votes in Michigan, 1,173 likely voters in North Carolina, 1,775 likely voters in Pennsylvania, and 1,077 likely voters in Wisconsin.
Each state’s results have a margin or error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, except Pennsylvania (2 percentage points).
