Former President Donald Trump gains an edge in critical swing states on Vice President Kamala Harris in a hypothetical six-way race that includes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other candidates, according to a new poll.
A Data for Progress survey last month found Trump and Harris tied at 49% support among likely voters in the battleground states — but the former president surges ahead by 1 percentage point, 46% to 45%, when four other candidates are put on the 2024 ballots.
The race between the Republican nominee and the presumptive Democratic nominee in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada is complicated by voters’ support for Kennedy Jr. (4%), Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver (0%), Green Party candidate Jill Stein (1%) and independent candidate Cornel West (1%).
Crosstabs for the poll, commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and first reported by Punchbowl News, show Harris losing the youth vote and the low-income vote to Trump when those candidates are included.
In the six-way race, 46% of 18 to 34 year olds end up backing Trump, compared with 41% backing her.
In a head-to-head matchup, she wins the youth vote against him, 52% to 46%.
A plurality of likely voters in those states with an income of less than $50,000 also support Trump over Harris in the six-way race, 46% to 45%.
Roughly 49% support Harris and 48% support Trump in a two-way race.
Sanders has not yet endorsed Harris but remains a firm supporter of her candidacy.
The results reveal that the 45th president has significantly improved his standing among working-class, black and Hispanic voters since his 2020 loss to then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, when compared with CNN exit polls at the time.
The Data for Progress poll is consistent with other public polling in swing states since President Biden withdrew from the 2024 race on July 21 — and endorsed Harris to succeed him.
A CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday had Trump and Harris tied at 50% in a head-to-head matchup that averaged results in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
Trump was beating Biden in each of those states before his decision to step aside — and enjoyed a 5% lead in the national average.
Sanders told Punchbowl that the survey he commissioned also shows a high degree of support for progressive pet projects.
Nearly three-fourths of the likely battleground state voters (71%) support tax hikes on the rich, and 55% of those who identify as Republicans back that proposal.
Another 67% support raising taxes on large corporations — and 70% would like to see the US minimum wage reach $17 per hour.
But a clear majority of 57% are against reductions to the US military budget, which Sanders and other left-wing lawmakers have long advocated for.
“What I want to make sure — and what this all is about — is to get the point not only to the vice president but to every Democratic candidate that if you run on issues, economic issues of concern to the working class of this country we have ignored for too many years, you can win this election,” Sanders said of the poll’s findings.
The top issues for voters remain the economy, jobs and inflation; immigration; and entitlement programs like social security and Medicare.
Asked about the 40-year high inflationary numbers reached under the Biden-Harris administration, Sanders answered, “I think the overwhelming economic evidence is that the reason we’ve had inflation in recent years has everything to do with corporate greed.”
“Most of the inflation we’re seeing in recent years has to do with record-breaking corporate profits,” he claimed, ignoring the trillions of dollars in federal spending that even former Obama economic advisers have said contributed to the high cost of goods and services.
Data for Progress surveyed 1,158 U.S. likely voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin between July 26 and 29.
The margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.