Four for Friday: How a Kamala Harris-Josh Shapiro ticket would fare in Pennsylvania

Few states will play a larger role in the 2024 presidential election than Pennsylvania. And in President Joe Biden’s home state, where he beat former President Donald Trump in 2020 by 1.17% – more than 80,000 votes – the question arises whether Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris can carry the Keystone State in similar fashion. 

Harris’s name atop the ticket – combined with the possibility of Gov. Josh Shapiro getting picked as the vice presidential nominee – will have implications for voters focused on the presidential race and those involved in down-ballot races. 

Here’s a quick look at some of the factors at play in Pennsylvania: 

Previous polls

Polls leading up to the assassination attempt on Trump and Biden's withdrawal from the race showed Trump leading the current president by several points and Harris by a couple of points in what was then a hypothetical matchup. 

Across the board, Harris trailed Trump by 2 percentage points nationally on average, 46% to 48%, which was actually an improvement over Biden’s standing in the race: He trailed Trump by 3 percentage points in the polling average, 47% to 44%.

And looking at swing states including Pennsylvania, again taken before Biden announced he would withdraw and completed before the assassination attempt on Trump, Harris was only down by a percentage point in the commonwealth in the hypothetical matchup with Trump.

Harris Bump

Polls indicated, even before Biden’s decision to withdraw, Harris would appear to energize many young and minority voters. Harris slightly outperformed Biden among Black voters, leading Trump among this demographic by 64 points – 78% to 14% –  compared to Biden’s 57-point lead among Black voters – 69% to 12%. 

And in the swing states of Pennsylvania and Virginia, Harris performed slightly stronger than Biden with Black voters, younger voters, and women – all groups that Biden relied on in 2020 and Democrats are hoping to attract in the fall. 

The Harris campaign has touted how her electability can expand on Biden’s winning coalition from 2020. Axios reported that the Harris campaign said, “Her net favorability is 19 points higher than Trump's among white, college-educated voters, and 18 points higher than Trump's among voters over 65.” The campaign also claimed that about 7% of undecided voters are “disproportionately Black, Latino, and under 30.”

Vice presidential potential

Shapiro, who has a high approval rating among commonwealth voters, could not only be the difference for undecided presidential voters but also drive local turnout in critical municipal and legislative elections. Shapiro beat Republican gubernatorial candidate and Trump-aligned state Sen. Doug Mastriano in the 2022 race for governor by nearly 15 percentage points, a landslide significantly larger than Biden's margin in his 2020 win over Trump. 

A poll released this past May showed that about 57% of Pennsylvanians strongly or somewhat approve of Shapiro’s leadership, while Biden had a 38% approval rating. Shapiro’s approval among Republicans was 42% as well, including more than a third of former Trump voters approving of his job performance.  

Latest polls

Some of the latest polls show a major shift since the Biden-Harris substitution. 

Reuters released a national poll last week showing Trump with a 2-point lead, and on Tuesday, that same poll showed Harris with a 2-point lead. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll also shows that it’s now a whole new ballgame – with the poll showing the two candidates in a statistical tie.

Meanwhile, a CNN/SSRS poll published Wednesday showed Harris polling slightly better than Biden did, with the 2024 race in a statistical tie. Harris drew 46% of support among registered voters in the poll, lower than Trump’s 49% but within the poll’s margin of error. 

And compared to Biden’s polling in early June, Harris is polling 9 percentage points higher among independents, 8 points higher among people of color, 6 points higher among women and voters under 35 and 5 points higher among non-college educated voters.