With seven weeks to go until the US presidential election, Kamala Harris has taken a slight lead of at least 5 points over Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and Michigan, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published Wednesday.
• Also read: The American election campaign is shifting into a new dimension
• Also read: Trump escalates attacks on migrants in high-tension campaign
• Also read: Georgia dismisses two more Trump charges in attempt to overturn election results
A week after the debate between the two candidates, the Democratic vice-president received 51% of the voting intentions in Pennsylvania, compared to 45% for her Republican rival.
The swing state is considered crucial in the race for the White House because it provides its winner with more electoral votes than any of the other six most contested states.
It was logically in Pennsylvania that the two adversaries confronted each other orally, during a debate on September 10 which could well be the only one of this presidential campaign.
It was also in this state, fought by both candidates, that Donald Trump was the target of a first assassination attempt on July 13, when a gunman shot him in the ear.
Still according to this Quinnipiac poll, Ms. Harris leads against Mr. Trump in Michigan (50 against 45%) and much less clearly in Wisconsin (48 against 47%).
The candidate who is defeated in these three states loses virtually all chance of being elected nationally. Donald Trump won them in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.
To conduct its opinion study, the Quinnipiac University institute questioned, between September 12 and 16, 1,331 voters in Pennsylvania, 905 in Michigan and 1,075 in Wisconsin, with margins of error ranging from 2.7 to 3.3 percentage points.
