LITITZ, Pennsylvania — Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have supported the same presidential candidate since 1980, except in 1988, when Wisconsin backed Democrat Michael Dukakis over Republican and eventual president, George H.W. Bush.
But with all three so-called blue wall states polling within the margin of error, this could be the election cycle during which the battlegrounds buck that historical trend.
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On Sunday, the last New York Times-Siena College poll before Tuesday’s election found Harris and Trump are tied in Pennsylvania and Michigan. The vice president has a 2 percentage point lead in Wisconsin, but that finding is within the survey’s sampling error.
RealClearPolitics polling averages present similar results. According to the polling aggregator, Harris is leading in Michigan and Wisconsin but by less than a point, while Trump is ahead in Pennsylvania by the same amount.
Harris spent Saturday in Wisconsin and Sunday in Michigan, with plans to spend Monday, Election Eve, in Pennsylvania, underscoring the importance of the blue wall to her electoral map, her easiest math to 270 Electoral College votes.
Meanwhile, Trump spent the last weekend before the election criss-crossing the country, including a rally in the Democratic stronghold of Virginia, in addition to the blue wall.
The Trump campaign’s projection of confidence is also expressed by the former president’s supporters, in comparison to Harris’s counterparts, who consider themselves to be cautiously optimistic, particularly in Pennsylvania. The vice president’s path back to the White House is more complicated without the Keystone State’s 19 electoral votes on Tuesday, whereas Trump has more options.
In Republican House candidate Ryan Mackenzie’s campaign office in Allentown, Pennsylvania, cousins Doris Eckhart and Wendy Kleintop, both 68 and helping Mackenzie in the state’s 7th congressional district, were confident about next Tuesday.
“There’s always that margin of error that the Democrats will cheat because they’ve cheated before,” Kleintop, a Walnutport landscaping small business owner, told the Washington Examiner of the presidential race. “I believe that he won four years ago. I’m one of those one of those people.”
Trump amplified those concerns on Sunday during a rally 90 minutes away in Lititz, Pennsylvania.
“If nothing comes out of this whole damn thing, it’s going to teach you you damn well better get a different system,” Trump said. “For future elections, I won’t be even a part of it, but you want to damn well go to paper ballots, you ought to go to voter ID, and you want to have the election over by 9 o’clock.”
The evening before, prior to former first lady Michelle Obama‘s rally in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Democrat Timothy Webb also conveyed concerns about “afterwards,” though he encouraged Harris from stop calling herself the “underdog.” Harris has not used the term “underdog” in her stump speech since Oct. 21.
“Say you’re going to win. It motivates your people. It makes them feel confident,” the East Norriton healthcare industry worker, told the Washington Examiner.
Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are part of the blue wall, the dozen or so states Democrats have won since the 1992 election until the 2016 contest.
On whether the three-state blue wall will hold, Marquette Law School Poll director Charles Franklin, who is based in Wisconsin, described it as a “decent bet” based on their “history of voting the same way.”
“But each was close enough in 2020 and in current polling averages that I think it is entirely possible they split this time,” Franklin told the Washington Examiner. “PA seems the closest at this point in the polling averages.”
Another pollster, Suffolk University Political Research Center director David Paleologos, agreed “anything is possible” on Tuesday.
“You have interesting dynamics in each state, like the change in PA voter registration between 2020 and 2024,” Paleologos told the Washington Examiner.
There are 9 million active registered voters in Pennsylvania in 2024, 4 million of whom are Democrats, 3.7 million are Republicans, and 1.1 million who have no affiliation or are affiliated with a minor party, according to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt. Although Democrats retain their advantage, it is smaller than its 686,000 voter edge in 2020.
As of Sunday, 990,000 Democrats have returned their absentee ballots in Pennsylvania to 584,000 Republicans. Neither Michigan nor Wisconsin collect party voter registration data.
Paleologos added third-party or independent voters in Michigan “could really matter” on Tuesday since the state’s ballot includes eight candidates for president amid the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza.
Harris addressed the issue during a rally at Michigan State Union in East Lansing on Sunday.
“We are joined today by leaders of the Arab American community, which has deep and proud roots here in Michigan,” the vice president said. “I want to say this year has been difficult given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon.”
“It is devastating, and as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure, and ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, security, and self determination,” she continued.
University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement director Michael Hanmer’s “general sense” is that Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will “go the same way.”
“But the margins are going to be very tight, so I would not be surprised at all if they did not go the same way,” Hanmer told the Washington Examiner. “The biggest surprise for me would be if one candidate wins any of them by a wide margin.”
Hanmer, a government and politics professor, noted “there are absolutely similarities among these states, but there are also important differences,” including their respective voter demographic breakdowns. For example, Wisconsin is less diverse than Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Lab director Charles Stewart concurred “it’s looking like MI, PA, and WI will be on the same side this year.”
“Part of that answer is based on just reading the polls, which have been pretty consistent for the past month,” Stewart told the Washington Examiner. “Not many voters are moving from one candidate to the other at this point. The only wildcard at this point is voter enthusiasm, and it will be the job of the campaigns to stoke it and drive the [get out the vote] efforts in those states.”
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For Stewart, a MIT political science professor, “this is a situation where, if there’s a shift of 2 points nationwide toward Trump between now and Election Day, it will pull those three states into the Trump column.”
“Similarly, if the shift goes to Harris, the real question is whether [North Carolina] joins them,” he said.
