Donald Trump’s Chances of Beating Kamala Harris in Wisconsin: Polls

The race for Wisconsin remains incredibly close between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, with one poll released this week finding the candidates tied in the critical battleground state.
Wisconsin was considered a tipping point in President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, with the president winning the state’s 10 electoral votes over Trump by just 0.7 percent of the vote. Polling has shown that November’s contest will likely look similar, with several surveys in the last few weeks finding this year’s presidential candidates tied in the Badget State.
According to a survey by Napolitan News released on Thursday, Harris is up by Trump by just one percentage point (50 percent to 49 percent) among 788 likely voters in Wisconsin. Given the poll’s margin of error of 3.5 percent, however, the candidates are considered to be in a statistical tie.
A separate survey from Rasmussen Reports and American Thinker, conducted between September 19 and 22, found the 2024 candidates tied at 49 percent, according to the responses of 1,071 likely voters in Wisconsin. As American Thinker managing editor Andrea Widburg noted in a report that accompanied the poll on Wednesday, the candidates are stuck neck-and-neck largely because of “the four issues that concern Wisconsin voters: the economy, immigration, energy policy, and abortion.”
“On the first two, a majority of voters believe that Trump is the stronger candidate; on the last two, a slight majority side with Harris on energy issues, while those who support Harris are also strongly pro-abortion,” Widburg added.
Polling released last week told a similar story in Wisconsin. In a survey from Emerson College and The Hill between September 15 and 18, Trump was up by just 1 percentage point (49 percent to 48 percent), according to the responses of 1,000 likely voters. In another survey from MaristPoll conducted that same week, Harris was up by 1 point (50 percent to 49 percent), according to a sample size of 1,194 voters.
Averages compiled by RealClearPolling (RCP) show that Harris holds just a 0.7 percentage point lead in Wisconsin. The state’s contest has remained incredibly close since Harris launched her campaign. According to RCP’s records, the largest gap between the candidates was late last month, when Harris was leading Trump on average by 1.9 percentage points (49 percent to 47.1 percent) as of August 29.
The New York Times polling tracker gives Harris a bit more of a gap with less than six weeks until Election Day, finding that the vice president is ahead by 2 percentage points on average in Wisconsin as of Thursday.
Two major election forecasts also give Harris a higher chance of winning Wisconsin. Pollster Nate Silver predicts that the vice president has a 61 percent of securing the Badger State and its 10 electoral votes, while Trump was given a 39 percent chance as of Thursday. FiveThirtyEight’s model gave Harris almost identical odds (62 percent chance to Trump’s 38 percent chance).
Newsweek reached out to the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment on Thursday.