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We're less than forty days away from election day in the US and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the national polls. But as November fifth looms, what's really going to move the needle? Are voters in a handful of swing states and their feelings about a handful of issues, abortion, democracy, immigration, and voter's top issue the economy.
When we ask them, is the economy on the right or wrong track? Sixty seven percent still say the economies on the wrong track.
That's Wendy Benjaminson, a senior editor for Bloomberg News. For the past year, Wendy and her team have partnered with Morning Consult on a series of polls that ask about those key issues in those seven key.
States Arizona, Nevada, Grgia, North Carolina, and the Blue Wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Today, the results from the penultimate poll before November are in, and a race that many once thought was Trump's to lose is getting closer. When it comes to who those likely voters trust to steer the US economy. Harris is catching up today on the show We Dig into New polling data from Bloomberg and Morning Console to understand what likely voters in these seven states say about the economic policies Harris and Trump are proposing and who they're more
likely to vote for in November. This is the Big Take DC Podcast. I'm Sarah Holder. Thank you so much for being here.
Wendy, thanks for having me.
Before we get into what we've learned from the polling data we just got today, I want you to give us a little bit of a level set. There's a lot of skepticism towards how much we can lean on polling in elections, So let's be upfront. Who did we pull and how should listeners think about this data we're about to dig into.
So over the last year, starting in October of twenty twenty three, every month, we have pulled a sample of registered voters in the seven key states that will likely decide the election. These are all states that have swung in recent years, hence the name swing States, and the path to two hundred and seventy electoral votes, which either nominee needs to capture the White House, goes through these states.
Beginning in August, however, we layered on to those registered voters the likely voters, people who said they are actually motivated and interested enough to get up and submit a ballot, either by mail or in person, and that early voting has started, And that in itself makes these polls a little more accurate because these are the people who actually say they're going to vote.
And how many voters are we talking about here.
Well, we're talking about close to six thousand voters. But this is a statistical sample, six thousand people in swing states. We've waited them for the demographics in each state, for the income levels in each state, for voting patterns in each state, so that we have a smart statistical sample of the US electorate. Voters should consider this data a snapshot in time. A lot can happen in a short amount of time. I mean, on the fourth of July,
Joe Biden was the nominee. We've had two assassination attempts on Trump, so we can't say that this is how the race looks on November fifth. We can only say this is how it looks right now. So what we really wanted to see here was whose campaign has the momentum, whose campaign seems to be working.
So the big question on everyone's mind Wendy is which campaign does have the momentum? How close is this race looking in these key states based on what we learn today? Is it still looking super super close.
It's a squeaker. It's really a squeaker. But but Kamala Harris right now, the Democratic nominee, has the momentum. She has a within the margin of error lead, meaning one to two to three point ish leads in most of the seven states. I think she goes outside the margin of error in Pennsylvania, where she has spent I should say a tremendous amount of time and money. She must win Pennsylvania as she knows that she's really going for it.
Trump is not clearly ahead in any of those seven states. Furthermore, Harris has narrowed the gap with Trump on who do you trust to handle the economy? He is still ahead on that question, but in August he was ahead by six points. In September he is ahead by only four points. She has also increased her lead on who is better suited to help the middle class, and her economic policy positions are more popular than Biden's.
So how did likely voters respond to those policies? Harris has been promoting.
Very well, in a nutshell, we gave the voters in these swing states a blind taste test that said, here's some policy proposals. In fact, what we all we said in the question was please indicate if you support or oppose each of the following policy proposals without telling them this was Donald Trump's, this was Kamala Harris's. The most popular policy proposal is to eliminate or avoid taxes on Social Security benefits. Eighty two percent of people support that.
That is a both policy. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both do that. But then as you go down in popularity too, corporate landlords who buy up single family homes, that's a Harris proposal. Seventy seven percent of voters, these are Republicans and Democrats support that policy. You have seventy nine percent support a federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries. That's a Harris one. Seventy four percent support raising taxes on those who make more than four
hundred thousand dollars a year. And then when you get into ones that are Trump policies, such as raising the cap for state and local tax deductions in high tax states, that's a fifty percent that's a Trump policy, or fifty two percent support for the universal ten percent tariff on imported goods. So not only are people trusting her more to handle the economy, they're saying they like her ideas more.
Well. It's interesting Harris is in this unique bind where she's running both on Biden's record as part of his administration right now and as this change maker. Does it look like voters hold Harris responsible at all for the economic challenges they've had the past few years.
That surprised me. No, they do not, not as much as they blame Joe Biden. Still, Donald Trump has been trying day after day after day to wrap Joe Biden's economic policies around her neck. And you know, let's be fair, she's the current vice president. She had a role supposedly in some of these things, so she can and perhaps should be held responsible for them. But voters really aren't
seeing it that way. They are buying into her message that she is the challenger, that she is not the current president nor the former president, even though she's the vice president. She's a new face with her own ideas, with her own views of the economy, and voters seem to be much more willing to say, yeah, Biden did that, and I don't like it as much as they are willing to say that they're blaming her.
Wendy the said cut rates this month, citing confidence that inflation was under control. How has that news settled with these swing state voters?
That was a really interesting sort of split screen answer. As specifically, does the decision to lower rates make you feel better about the economy next year? Forty six percent said they were more optimistic about the economy, and that includes a third of those who are Republicans who feel that with lower interest rates they might be able to buy a car, pay down their credit card debt, maybe even buy a house. They feel better about those sort of things. However, when we ask them is the economy
on the right or wrong track? Sixty seven percent still say the economy's on the wrong track. Now, what's funny about that one is it goes down the closer you get to their home. Forty nine percent say the economy is on the wrong track in their own town and fifty six percent say it's going on the wrong track in their state. But in the country, sixty seven percent
say it's on the wrong track. So it just you know, everything's kind of okay, but you know, the candidates tell me it's terrible everywhere else.
So there are some bright spots for Harris, but there are also areas where these likely voters still trust Trump more. More on that and what candidates could do in these states to shore up their messaging after the break. So, Wendy, a lot of this looks pretty positive for Harris. These Harris policy proposals appear very popular with swing state voters, but Trump is still slightly ahead when it comes to who voters say they trust more when it comes to
the economy. What do you think the candidates will do over the next few weeks to solidify or change that impression.
Well, and I think that's what we look at in the poll results, right. We want to figure out from that where a smart candidate would spend time and now, so if I were Kamala Harris, I would probably spend a lot of time on the border, coming up with a new immigration policy. And guess what, She's in Arizona tomorrow and she's going to go to the border. There is one area in which Donald Trump has a clear lead,
and that is over immigration. He is still tremendously ahead of her for voters for whom immigration is their number one concern, and voters do trust him more to handle the issue of immigration. This is despite the untrue stories he's been putting out there about Haitian immigrants eating cats and that all illegal immigrants are deadly criminals and things
like that. That also reflects concern about immigration in the country, and that he has attacked her as being weak on immigration, and so in that area he is still doing very very well. I would if I were her, hammer home these very popular ideas, get more specific. Tell us how it's going to work, how you're going to pay for it, what the government will do with the lost revenue for lowering taxes. Now her answer is raised them on rich people.
Donald Trump, his advisors have been telling him to talk about the economy much more, and he tries, but then he talks about what made him angry that morning, and he keeps sort of wandering off the point, which I think voters might be starting to get a little tired of.
Wendy. Let's take a look at the more granular data for a moment that's coming out of each swing state individually. What can we learn from seeing which swing states are leaning for which candidate and where leads are narrowing.
With that data, what political analysts will do is figure out what we call the path to two seventy. We know, for example, that Donald Trump is going to carry Texas and Florida. That is a huge electoral college prize. We also know we're fairly confident that Kamala Harris will carry California and New York two also tremendous electoral college prizes. But then there's that whole middle part of the country that tends to be Trump country. And then there's the Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Pennsylvania the blue wall for Democrats. So what the individual data tells us is where they might go to shore up their support. In these swing states, Trump can look pretty much favorably to a state like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, where people tend to be more conservative. There aren't the big as many big cities which tend to be Democratic, and there is just more support for Donald Trump in those states. So you'll see him spend a
lot of time there. And I think she's going to plant herself in the industrial Midwest and not come home until November.
Well, Wendy there's one more poll coming in October.
Just want more?
Can you give us a little preview of what you're most excited about to see in those results?
Well, that poll will be much more than just a snapshot in time. At that point, many of these likely voters will have voted early, sent in their mail ballot. That one is going to more closely reflect the outcome we will see two weeks, since there isn't a lot of time from October twenty third to November fifth for voters to change their minds, and so at that point we're going to see a real picture of the race ahead, and we'll see how people are feeling about the economy at the same time.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having me, Sarah.
Thanks for listening to the Big Take DC podcast from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by Julia Press. It was edited by Aaron Edwards. It was mixed by Blake Naples and fact checked by Alex Sugia. Naomi Shaven, who also edited this episode, is our senior producer. Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction. Nicole Beemsterbor is our executive producer Sage Bound is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Please follow and review The Big Take DC Whereever you
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