Harris holds slight lead over Trump in battleground Michigan survey

Vice President Harris holds a slight lead over her rival, former President Trump, in the latest survey of battleground state Michigan released on Monday. 

Harris had a 2.6 percentage point lead, 46.8 percent to 44.2 percent, over the former president among Michigan’s likely voters, according to a poll from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV. Around 8.3 percent back another candidate while 0.7 percent were undecided. Harris’s lead was within the poll’s margin of error. 

Despite the narrow lead, the survey’s results mark Harris’s largest lead over Trump among the four polls commissioned by WDIV-TV and The Detroit News this year. In the last iteration of the survey, which was done in late August, Trump had a 1.2 percentage point lead over Harris, 44.7 percent to 43.5 percent. 

Jobs and the economy were the top issues for Michigan voters at 18 percent. Second was abortion at 15 percent while immigration was third at 14 percent. 

Trump had a 7-point lead on handling the economy, 52 percent to 45 percent, according to the new survey. The ex-president's advantage on the issue decreased from the last version of the poll, when he led the Democratic nominee by 13 points, 52 percent to 39 percent. 

Harris is doing slightly better with self-described independent likely voters in Michigan. Around 40 percent of them are backing her, 39 percent are supporting Trump and 5 percent still support former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his bid and endorsed Trump in late August. 

Taken together, Michigan polls in recent weeks show an extremely tight race.

Trump, the GOP nominee, had a 2.2 percentage point lead over Harris among likely Michigan voters, according to last week’s poll released by Trafalgar Group. Harris led by 3 percentage points in Michigan, according to polling from Cook Political Report released last week. 

Both candidates are tied at 48 percent each in Michigan, according to the latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of polls. 

The Detroit News and WDIV-TV poll conducted Oct. 1-4 among 600 likely voters. The margin of error was 4 points.