Getty ImagesThe address of the White House may be 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but the actual path to the presidency runs through the biggest prize on the electoral battleground map: Pennsylvania.
A candidate who wins Pennsylvania has a more than 90% chance of winning the White House, according to election analyst Nate Silver’s calculations.
“America is the granddaddy of all battleground states,” said former Congressman Patrick Murphy, who represented northeastern Pennsylvania as a Democrat from 2007 to 2011.
Pennsylvania, the nation’s fifth most populous state, has 19 electoral votes and is a key battleground electoral firewall for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
If Democrats win one of the congressional districts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nebraska, she will become the next president. If Republicans win Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, Trump will return to the White House next year.
Without Pennsylvania, Trump cannot win without flipping at least three of the states Joe Biden won in 2020.
Pennsylvania, known as the Keystone State, could actually be the key to the White House.
Battlefield like America
Pennsylvania is not only the most valuable battleground state, but also a microcosm of the entire United States from a demographic, economic, and political perspective.
Once a manufacturing nation, it is transitioning into newer industries and businesses, but it also has a large energy sector thanks to its rich oil shale deposits. Agriculture remains the second largest industry in the state.
Although the majority of the population is white, there is a growing immigrant community. Some areas, such as Allentown, a working-class factory town made famous by a Billy Joel song, now have a majority Hispanic population. The state’s black population is 12%, slightly lower than the U.S. population of 13%.
When it comes to politics, the state’s two largest metropolitan areas, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, strongly favor Democrats. Between the two is a vast rural area dominated by Republicans. And suburbs that were once reliably conservative are now leaning leftward.
This gives rise to the old joke that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with (heavily Republican) Alabama in the middle.
Somehow, all these political intersections and power shifts have kept Pennsylvania in a near dead-even balance when it comes to presidential elections. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the state by about 80,000 votes. In 2016, Donald Trump won a surprise victory over Hillary Clinton by about 40,000 votes.
Only once in the past 40 years has a candidate won Pennsylvania by a double-digit margin. Barack Obama won the 2008 election by a landslide.
Current polls show the race between Harris and Trump in the state is effectively a dead heat. Ms. Harris has a lead of less than 1 percentage point, according to pollster 538/ABC News, but that gap has remained largely unchanged throughout this tumultuous political year.
The key to winning the White House
Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are pouring huge amounts of money into Pennsylvania. They spend more on TV ads than other battleground states. Both candidates visit regularly.
Harris introduced her running mate, Tim Walz, at a rally in Philadelphia. She spent days preparing for the presidential debate in Pittsburgh. She gave a big economic speech there two weeks ago.
Last Saturday, President Trump held a large rally in Butler, where he was nearly assassinated in July. On Wednesday, he was in Biden’s hometowns of Scranton and Redding.
And when school principals are absent, other politicians and officials on both sides are rallying support.
“Candidates can’t go into a county and talk to 1,200 people,” says former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. “The country is too big. We just don’t have time. That’s what surrogate mothers are for.”
Rendell points out that the current governor, Democrat Josh Shapiro, is extremely popular and a dynamic voice in the state, which is a big help for the Democratic Party here. Those qualities make him a strong candidate to be Harris’ running mate.
For Ms. Harris, the key to victory is winning enough suburban areas to offset her losses to Mr. Trump in the rest of the state, with overwhelming numbers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
A key part of this strategy includes the more than 160,000 people who voted for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the state’s Republican primary held earlier this year, after Trump had already secured victory. , to win the support of moderate voters and some Republicans. Increase party nominations.
“What these people need to hear is that both Kamala Harris’ past record and future plans are fundamentally centrist positions, meaning she’s not this crazy and wild.” It’s not about the radical left in the eyes,” said former Republican Craig Snyder. Senate staffer running Pennsylvania’s Haley Voters for Harris effort.
He added that the Harris campaign is undertaking the most extensive effort in a generation to reach Republican voters.
President Trump’s strategy is to squeeze as much support as possible from conservative voters in the state, including by registering and mobilizing people who may not have participated in past elections, according to Trump campaign officials. This, he says, is the center of grassroots efforts. .
There are signs that their efforts may be paying off. Registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans in the state, but by only a few hundred thousand people, the smallest difference since 1998, when the state first began releasing statistics.
While convincing suburban, college-educated voters may be difficult, Trump’s campaign also believes it can chip away at traditional Democratic support among blue-collar union voters and young black men.
“We’ve seen across the country that President Trump is really trying to make inroads with African American men,” said conservative education activist Farah Jimenez. “They’re here in Philadelphia. If he can persuade them to speak more clearly about things that concern them, then he can at least start to provide a base for the Republican Party in Philadelphia.”
BBC Question Time arrives in the US
The BBC’s flagship political debate show heads to Pennsylvania on Thursday 10 October, recorded at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and hosted by Fiona Bruce, alongside the BBC’s Anthony Zurcher and former Trump campaign adviser Brian Lanza. , a panel of local viewers including commentator Mehdi will appear. Hasan will be streamed on the BBC website from 16:00 ET (21:00 BST). UK viewers can also watch on BBC One and iPlayer, while viewers around the world can watch on BBC News Channel
Another waiting game for Pennsylvania
Four years ago, results in Pennsylvania took several days. This was largely due to the more than 2 million mail-in ballots cast due to the coronavirus pandemic. Major media outlets did not predict Biden would be the winner until four days after the election.
Although fewer mail-in ballots are expected this year, the state reports it has already received 217,000 completed ballots, which under Pennsylvania law will have until Election Night to open and count. It is said that it is not possible.
Another wild card is the more than 27,000 military and overseas voter ballots that Pennsylvania officials have distributed so far. When the race is as close as polls show, those votes can make a difference, even if they take time to arrive and be recorded.
“I can’t imagine it taking more than a few days to count,” Snyder said. “And if the tally is close, there will be lawsuits and recounts and all the rest of the process. So everyone needs to buckle up.”
North American correspondent Anthony Zurcher covers the race for the White House in his twice-weekly U.S. Elections Unspin newsletter. UK readers can sign up here. People outside the UK can sign up here.
