Swing states where Trump and Harris are deadlocked: polls and the economy

As most political junkies know, the US presidential election is not decided by the national popular vote. Instead, the Electoral College system focuses candidates on winning key "swing states" that are not firmly Democrat or Republican. By edging out Hillary Clinton by tiny margins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, Donald Trump took all of those states' electors and won the presidency in 2016 while losing the popular vote.

With the vote just weeks away, CEIC has just introduced daily polling data for these top battleground states courtesy of RealClearPolitics: we're focusing on Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

As of Oct. 10, support for former President Trump stands at 47.2%, trailing Vice-President Kamala Harris' 49.2%. However, if we choose just to focus on our battleground states, Trump has a slight lead: 48.4% of the vote, versus 48.1% for Harris.

We've also taken a deep dive into the economies of these key states. Will stronger growth rates translate into more satisfaction with the incumbent party? As our second chart shows, the Midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan are currently defying their "Rust Belt" reputation, outpacing the 3% growth rate for the US as a whole by more than a percentage point. The only swing state trailing the national growth rate is Nevada.

Together, our seven battleground states accounted for 16% of total US gross domestic product in the second quarter, as the third chart shows. They vary significantly in size; the output of Pennsylvania (USD 814.7bn) is four times larger than that of Nevada (USD 200.5bn).

Next we turn to the labor market, where Wisconsin is a positive standout: its jobless rate is just 2.9% versus 4.2% nationwide. Nevada's weakness is reflected here again; unemployment stands at 5.5%.

For an indicator of softness in the labor market, however, we've also included a heat map on the job openings rate. It gives a sense of why the Federal Reserve finally pivoted to its first interest-rate cut since the pandemic. Recent readings are the worst in years for all of our swing states, and they have more or less been cooling in unison since mid-2023.

Finally. we've added a Trump vs. Harris chart for each of our seven states. They will all be updated daily in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election.

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