The blue wall battlegrounds will be won or lost on the economy. Here’s where Harris stands in these critical states.

The latest Marquette University Law School poll showed Harris leading Trump by a four-point margin (52% to 48%) among likely voters.

Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac University poll showed Trump ahead of Harris 48% to 46% among likely Wisconsin voters. In that survey, voters favored Trump over Harris by nine points (53% to 44%) when asked which candidate would be better on economic issues.

The fight for union members in Michigan

For decades, labor unions have largely been viewed as reliably Democratic. But there are caveats to this dynamic.

Leaders in unions like the AFL-CIO have largely backed the Democratic Party. And their ties to Biden have been an enduring part of the administration’s work to address issues regarding prevailing wages and project labor agreements.

But among the rank and file, support for Democrats isn’t a given.

In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Trump in 2016 successfully peeled off blocs of union workers. Some of them switched to Biden in 2020, which allowed the president to flip all three states back into the Democratic column that year.

However, some of these voters remain undecided about Harris, who lacks the sort of relationship that Biden had cultivated with working-class voters in these states. And Trump’s economic pitch — where he’s reiterated his desire to revive the manufacturing sector despite Harris’ work on the issue alongside Biden — has been an effective draw for some members.

Peter Loge, an associate professor and the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, told Business Insider that another reason for Trump’s inroads with union workers is his strong standing with male voters.

“A lot of unions are male dominated and Trump is doing very well among men,” he said. “There are simply fewer women in a lot of those unions.”

But Loge also pointed to a newly-released Emerson College poll, which showed that Harris’ union support varied by state. In the survey, Harris had a 26-point lead with Wisconsin union households and a ten-point edge with Michigan union households, but she trailed Trump by ten points with this group in Pennsylvania.

This year, the Teamsters declined to endorse Harris or Trump, which marked the first time since 1996 that it had not issued a presidential endorsement. (Several local Teamsters unions announced their support for Harris.)

It’s a shift that could also boost Harris in Pennsylvania, which is a critical state for her campaign. Biden won the state narrowly in 2020, besting Trump by one percentage point.

From Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, Harris is aiming to bring together a coalition of union workers, suburbanites, young people, women, and minority voters who fueled Biden’s victory four years ago.

Harris has dismissed Trump’s attacks on her energy record, as she’s firmly said she wouldn’t ban fracking in the state. And she’s aiming to win over voters — especially union workers — in smaller cities where Trump found success in 2016.

The latest Quinnipiac poll gave Harris a 49% to 46% advantage over Trump among likely Pennsylvania voters.

But when it came to economic matters, Pennsylvania voters favored Trump over Harris by only two points (49% to 47%), another sign that voters have warmed up to some of her plans.