Kamala Harris maintains tight 4-point Wisconsin edge over Donald Trump in Marquette poll

Vice President Kamala Harris maintains a four-point lead over President Donald Trump in Wisconsin, according to the latest Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday.

Among both registered and likely voters, it was 52% for Harris and 48% for Trump. That shows no change from the last poll, released in mid-September, which had the same numbers for both registered and likely voters.

"It was a little bit tighter than that in July, after Harris first got in the race, where Trump led by 1% with registered (voters) but Harris led by 1% with likely voters," poll director Charles Franklin said. "But this four-point margin ... holds up again this time."

The poll surveyed 882 registered voters, 798 of which are considered likely to vote, between Sept. 18 and 26. Respondents are considered likely voters based on their voting record since 2016. The margin of error for both likely and registered voters was plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

The poll release comes in the middle of a busy week for both campaigns in Wisconsin. Trump held two events in Milwaukee and Dane County yesterday, while second gentleman Doug Emhoff campaigned in Milwaukee at the same time. Harris is set to hold a rally in the Fox Valley Thursday, and Trump will return Sunday for a rally in Juneau.

Franklin said one more Marquette poll of Wisconsin voters will be released on Oct. 30, less than a week before Election Day on Nov. 5. Other polls in Wisconsin have found a tighter race with about a one or two point margin, he noted.

"Remember — not that I really want to remind you — but we were off by four points last time in 2020. We were off by over six in 2016," Franklin said. "So fair warning, these results could change. We could be wrong, on the other hand, we could be right."

Support for third-party candidates has dropped

When factoring in third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West, Harris still has a four-point lead over Trump, 48% to 44% among registered voters.

Kennedy sued to remove his name from the ballot after dropping out of the race, a process he repeated in other battleground states over concerns that he would pull votes away from Trump. The state Supreme Court kept him on the ballot.

Mail-in absentee voting is underway in Wisconsin with Kennedy's name on the ballot. In the last Marquette poll, only 14% of voters were not aware that Kennedy had exited the race.

Support for Kennedy among Wisconsin voters has declined significantly over the past months, down to 3% in the new poll. Support for other third-party candidates has also dropped, now polling one percent or less. Earlier in the year, third-party candidates together were polling at about 24%.

"Put that together, it's a total of 6% voting third-party right now. The high this century is 5.5% of the actual vote in 2016," Franklin said. "So right now, the independent vote is just a smidgen higher than that actual vote was then."

Franklin has said that about a third of Kennedy voters would go to Harris, while two-thirds would vote for Trump. Some voters may still vote for Kennedy as a protest vote.

More: How could keeping RFK Jr's name on the Wisconsin ballot impact on 2024 presidential results?

The enthusiasm gap between parties has almost disappeared

When President Joe Biden was still in the presidential race, Republicans had a large advantage in voter enthusiasm. In the first poll to include Harris as the candidate, she closed the enthusiasm gap, but Trump still had a slight edge. In the September poll, she pulled ahead: Respondents "very" enthusiastic to vote broke for Harris 53% and for Trump 47%.

In the new poll, Harris keeps an edge over Trump in voter enthusiasm, but Republicans have inched up in enthusiasm while Democrats had a slight dip. Among Democrats, 71% said they are "very" enthusiastic to vote, down one point from September, and 67% of Republicans said the same, up four points from the last poll.

"We're really not seeing huge differences with enthusiasm, maybe slightly more of a Democratic advantage with the enthused," Franklin said. "But it's not nearly the chasm that we saw with Biden, or the early, sharp differences we saw with Harris as the candidate."

(This story was updated to add new information.)

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kamala Harris maintains 4-point edge over Trump in Marquette poll