GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — With voting underway in Michigan and Election Day next week, the presidential race in Michigan remains close, a new poll shows.
An EPIC-MRA poll released Friday shows that 48% of respondents said they intended to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the election and 45% for former President Donald Trump. With a margin of error of plus or minus 4%, that’s a statistical tie.
Three percent said they intended to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose name is on the Michigan ballot though he previously suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Trump. Three percent said they would vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party and 1% for independent Cornel West.
Polls have put Harris and Trump in a statistical dead heat in Michigan since she entered the race in July. A poll from Emerson College Polling released Oct. 10 recorded an outright tie in the state, with 49% of voters saying they intended to vote for Harris and 49% for Trump.
Michigan is among about seven swing states expected to decide the outcome of the election. Its importance has drawn candidates and surrogates to the state repeatedly. Trump has an event planned in southeastern Michigan Friday and his running mate JD Vance will be in Portage. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has three campaign events in Michigan Friday, with stops in Detroit, Flint and Traverse City.
Asked what was the most important issue influencing their choice for president, 30% of those polled said it was inflation and the cost of living. Eighteen percent said abortion and reproductive rights, 12% immigration and the Southern border, and 10% fitness for office — in terms of mental, physical and demeanor. Other responses included foreign policy and conflicts elsewhere in the world; taxes, spending and the national debt; crime and drugs; gun control; health care; and climate change, clean energy and the environment.
US SENATE RACE
In the race to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate, 47% of those polled said they would vote for U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin and 42% for former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers.
Six percent said they would vote for a third-party candidate and 3% were undecided or declined to answer.
Slotkin, a Democrat, also had a five-point lead over Rogers, a Republican, in the most recent Emerson poll, as well as an Emerson poll from September.
The two are vying for the seat vacated when U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat, retires at the end of this term after 24 years. The election outcome will help determine which party controls the upper chamber. Michigan has not sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since Stabenow’s predecessor.
About 62% of those polled said they intended to vote in person, either during the early voting period now required statewide — which started Saturday — or on Election Day. Thirty-five percent of people polled said they intended to vote absentee. State data shows that as of Friday morning, nearly 737,000 people had voted early in person statewide and more than 1.8 million absentee ballots had been returned.
EPIC-MRA polled 600 people from Oct. 24 to Oct. 28. Forty-four percent identified themselves as Republicans, 43% as Democrats and 11% as independents.
Nineteen percent were between the ages of 18 and 34, 26% between the ages of 35 and 49, 31% between the ages of 50 and 64, and 34% were 65 or older. Seventy-eight percent were white, 11% Black, 2% Hispanic or Latino, 1% each Asian or Native American, and 3% identified as mixed race.
