Poll: Donald Trump Tops Kamala Harris in Michigan After Debate

Former President Donald Trump has the edge over Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan after their debate on Tuesday, according to an Insider Advantage poll.

The poll, conducted on Wednesday and part of Thursday, finds that 49 percent of the 800 likely voter respondents back Trump, while 48 percent back Harris. Another one percent will vote for someone else, and two percent are undecided.

This marks a net-three point swing away from Harris and toward Trump since an August Insider Advantage/Trafalgar Group poll. That survey of 800 likely Michigan voters from August 6-8, 2024, found Harris leading 49 percent to 47 percent.

Independents prefer Trump over Harris by five points, noted Insider Advantage pollster Matt Towery in a release.

“It appears that the debate had little or no impact on the contest, particularly among independent voters, in this particular state,” Towery said, adding that separate polling Insider Advantage conducted with Trafalgar on debate night showed no change nationally among undecided voters:

A poll of battleground states we conducted with Trafalgar Group the night of the debate showed that while respondent’s [sic] thought Harris won the debate 55%-43%, undecideds did not move and overall support for the candidates was tied 48%-48%. The race remains extremely competitive both in Michigan and likely all of the battleground states.

Furthermore, 20 percent of black voters sampled in the poll back Trump, which Towery contends “may be an aberration, or a reflection of higher African-American numbers seen in recent national surveys such as The New York Times survey.”

The New York Times/Siena College poll published Sunday showed Trump at 17 percent among black registered voters, and he garnered 24 percent of black voters’ support in a Marist/NPR/PBS News poll released Friday.

Towery added:

Regardless, Michigan’s African-American vote, while not insignificant, is half that of swing states such as Georgia, so the elevated numbers, if reduced to past historical levels, would not change the basic tie within the margins. I suspect that for various reasons unique to Michigan in this cycle, the African-American numbers are fairly accurate, at least for this stage in the contest.

The poll’s margin of error is ± 3.7 percent.