Kamala Harris Opens Major Lead Among Pennsylvania Independents: Poll

A new poll shows Kamala Harris pulling ahead with a significant lead among independent voters in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state for the 2024 election.
The poll, conducted by Franklin & Marshall College between September 4 and September 15, shows Harris has a 13-point lead over Donald Trump among independent voters in Pennsylvania, with 48 percent of the vote to the former president’s 35 percent.
Overall, the vice president led Trump 49 percent to 46 percent among all 890 voters surveyed. That result falls within the poll’s plus or minus 4.1 percentage point margin of error.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email.
Independent voters are a key voting bloc for Harris and Trump in the swing states, where polls show a number of very close races.
In each of the past two presidential elections in Pennsylvania the winner won by fewer than 81,000 votes, meaning independent voters could play a pivotal role in 2024.
“That is the group to keep an eye on. You’ve got to win them to win,” Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research and the Floyd Institute for Public Policy at F&M, told Pennsylvania newspaper Lancaster Online.
Polls in Pennsylvania have largely shown Harris has the lead among independent voters.
A recent poll by Quinnipiac University, conducted between September 12 and September 16, showed that Harris was leading by 5 points among independent voters in Pennsylvania, with 48 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 43 percent. The poll surveyed 1,331 likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
A poll conducted by Emerson College between August 25 and August 28 among 950 likely voters in Pennsylvania, gave Harris an 8 point lead among independents in the state. That poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
An ActiVote poll conducted between August 5 and August 22, showed Harris with a 10-point lead with independents among 400 likely voters—a lead well outside of the poll’s 4.9 percent margin of error.
However, on a national level, polls have painted a different picture of the strength of Harris’ lead. The latest YouGov/Economist poll, conducted between September 15 and September 17, showed Harris with a 1-point lead among independent voters. President Joe Biden earned the majority of the independent vote in his 2020 win, according to Pew Research analysis.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump narrowly won over independents in his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.
Polling by MorningConsult showed Harris is leading Trump among independents in every swing state except for Arizona, where Trump leads by a substantial 14 points. The figures are from a set of new polls by Morning Consult up to September 8.
Harris’ biggest lead among independents was in Wisconsin, where she was ahead by 15 points. Her lead was smallest in Pennsylvania, where she was 5 points ahead.
The poll showed that in two key Republican states, Texas and Florida, independents are leaning toward Harris by 9 points and 2 points respectively.
The results come as Harris is making gains in the polls following the first presidential debate last week in Philadelphia.
According to pollster Nate Silver’s average, Harris is now 3.1 points ahead nationally, with 49.1 percent to Trump’s 46 percent. On September 11, the day after the debate, Harris was only 1.7 points ahead.
Harris has also gained in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. She is now 3.3 points ahead nationally, up from her 2.4-point lead on September 11.
However, while Silver’s forecast shows Harris winning the popular vote, it also shows Trump winning the Electoral College.
This is different from FiveThirtyEight’s forecast, which gives Harris a 64 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, compared to Trump’s 36 percent chance.
The forecast predicts that Harris will win every swing state, gaining 300 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 238. Silver’s forecast shows Trump winning every swing state except Wisconsin.