WASHINGTON — The most recent poll of likely Pennsylvania voters puts the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump as a dead heat, another indication of how close the race is in the nation's most populous battleground state.

The Muhlenberg College/Morning Call survey gave both Harris and Trump 48%, though with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points, either candidate could be slightly in the lead.

And a Monmouth University poll of registered Pennsylvania voters had the race 48% for Harris and 45% for Trump, but again, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, Trump could actually lead Harris by 3 points. There's no way to tell.

The one sure thing: The contest in Pennsylvania is a toss-up.

The polls were released on the day that Vice President Harris planned to deliver a major speech on the economy in Pittsburgh, which shows how important Pennsylvania is to her chances of winning the presidency.

It's the same for Trump, who acknowledged the fact during a rally in Indiana on Monday, telling the audience, "If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing."

In the Muhlenberg survey, voters of both parties agreed that the economy/inflation was a major issue, with 55% of Republicans and 18% of Democrats naming it their top concern.

For Democrats, abortion (25%) and protecting democracy (11%) also were important, while Republicans named immigration and the border (21%).

Trump's lead in the Monmouth poll was outside the margin of error among the 62% of Pennsylvania voters who named inflation as their first or second issue, with more than 50% backing him and less than 40% supporting Harris.

But Harris was preferred, 57% to 37% among the 40% who named abortion as one of their top two concerns, and 66% to 26% among the 27% of voters who said economic growth (but not inflation) was first or second among their concerns.

"Donald Trump does well on the dominant issue in this race," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. "But inflation isn't necessarily a concern for every voter. Kamala Harris has a particularly large advantage among those who do not prioritize inflation, which offsets Trump's support among voters who prioritize this issue."

The Muhlenberg poll of 450 likely Pennsylvania voters was conducted from Sept. 16-19. The Monmouth poll of 654 registered Pennsylvania voters was conducted Sept. 19-23.

Also Wednesday, a political action committee founded by George Conway, a Trump critic and former husband of former Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway, announced it would spend $250,000 in Pennsylvania on ads featuring two women who claimed they were sexually assaulted by the former president. The ads by Anti-Psychopath PAC will run on the Hallmark and Lifetime channels and online.

The women featured — Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds — make claims of unwanted and unwelcome advances from Trump.

"Natasha, Jessica, and so many more brave women like them have long been telling us who Donald Trump really is," Conway said. "It's time for Pennsylvania voters to listen to them, and to put his destructive foray into public life to an end."

A New York City jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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