WSJ: Difficult to predict US election results in swing states

According to a poll just released by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the two candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are in a balanced position in all seven battleground states, the states that will decide the outcome of the US presidential election next month.

A survey of 4,200 voters showed that Ms. Harris had a slim advantage over Mr. Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, while Mr. Trump held a small advantage in Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

However, the newspaper noted that none of the advantages exceeded 2 percentage points, except Nevada, where Mr. Trump led by 5 percentage points. All of these results were within the newspaper's margin of error.

Across the seven swing states, Trump leads Harris 46% to 45%, according to the poll. About 93% of Republicans support Trump, while 93% of Democrats support Harris. Independent voters also support Harris 40% to 39% for Trump.

“This race is extremely close and it will come down to the last three weeks. Those weeks are really important,” David Lee, a Republican pollster who worked on the survey, told the paper.

"It really couldn't be closer," said Democratic pollster Michael Bocian. "This is a very, very tight race."

A series of recent polls have shown Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris separated by just a few percentage points in these key states, with Mr. Trump dominating all but Wisconsin, according to RealClearPolitics.

Voters surveyed by the WSJ ranked the economy and immigration as their top two concerns. They favored Mr. Trump over Ms. Harris on economic issues by 10 points, and on immigration and border security by 16 points. Ms. Harris outscored Mr. Trump on abortion rights by 16 points.

At this point in the 2020 race, President Joe Biden leads Mr. Trump by five points in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Mr. Trump won all three of these northern industrial states in 2016 and lost them to Mr. Biden in 2020. Winning all three would virtually guarantee the presidency for either Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris this year.