Political jargon describes it as the “Keystone State” of the American electoral puzzle; it is one of the most populated territories in the entire country and the most visited by Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in their electoral campaigns. With 19 electoral delegates, Pennsylvania is the most important state in the very close elections that the United States faces on November 5. A handful of rural and suburban counties can decide the future of the world’s great power.
Since August, Harris has visited Pennsylvania a total of 13 times. The last one this Sunday. Trump, for his part, did so in 11. This is almost double that of the second most visited territory by campaigns: Michigan, with 7 Democratic visits and 9 Republican visits. On the other hand, more than 30 states have not received either candidate since the summer.
The reasons for the importance of this territory, whose independence from the United States was declared in 1776, lie in its population (it is the fifth most populous territory) and its demographic composition .
With nearly 13 million residents, Pennsylvania provides 19 electoral delegates — assigned based on each state’s population — of the 270 members who make up the Electoral College that decides the next U.S. president, even though it has lost relevance (in 2016, he distributed 20). ) remains a considerable number, compared to the 6 awarded by Nevada and the 11 by Arizona. Above are California with 54 and New York with 28, firm for Harris, and Texas with 40 and Florida with 30, firm for Trump.
Polls in Pennsylvania.
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An eternal tie
In Pennsylvania, on the other hand, Trump won by one point in 2016 and Biden by another 1% in 2020. Nothing is clear in 2024. The poll aggregator 538 gives this point advantage to Harris, but that does not means nothing because all the results shown by the surveys are within the margin of error. The latest, published by Bloomberg, directly avoids betting on a winner and gives 48% voting intention to bothi.e. the same results as in the last national surveys.
And that’s where the other factor comes in: Its demographics are very similar to those of the country as a whole, with two large progressive cities (Philadelphia and Pittsburgh), large middle-class suburbs with divided political leanings, and vast more conservative rural areas. Even the trends in the rest of the United States are being replicated here: Hispanics are the fastest growing community, by 45% since 2010 according to the University of Pennsylvania, to constitute more than a million inhabitants.
“The elections are here, and the elections in Philadelphia are truly in your hands. The path to victory lies with all of you who are here,” Harris said Sunday during a visit to Philadelphia which reflected the importance of this city to the Democrats.
That same day, the candidate visited an African-American church and a Puerto Rican restaurant, recognizing the urgency with which the urban Latino and African-American electorate must be mobilized to secure a sufficient majority to thwart Trump’s victories in the legislative elections. rural counties.
While Harris presented an economic plan for Puerto Rico, Trump held a rally in New York where Comedian’s Comment Who Called Puerto Rico an “Island Full of Garbage” It quickly went viral. In Pennsylvania, there are nearly 500,000 residents of Puerto Rican descent, more than triple the 100,000 votes Biden received over Trump in 2020, so the Democratic campaign is already putting intense pressure on this intervention.
Four counties can decide everything
Harris’ strategy also focuses on four other traditionally Republican suburbs that, after welcoming a more diverse and cosmopolitan population, have become Democratic strongholds: Bucks, ChesterMontgomery and Delaware (Delco).
There are several scenarios in which presidential elections could be won or lost in these four territories, including the last one. THE “Harris’ key “stone” is mobilizing enough voters here to secure an advantage in the statewide recount, as was the case for Biden in 2020, against the conservative “T”, a region from inside the Trump-loyal state.
Pennsylvania, in a technical tie.
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Trump’s challenge
Instead, Trump needs a strong push in rural and industrial areas of Pennsylvania. “Blue-collar workers,” as the middle class without higher education is called, were key to Trump’s 2016 surprise win in Pennsylvania, where Democrats had won continuously since 2000. But this same group is the one who turned the tide. back to him in 2020.
Republican analysts will pay special attention to the county Lancaster County, a region of southern Pennsylvania well known nationwide for the concentration of Amish communities who often visit students from states as far away as California and Florida. In this country, Republicans have won every presidential election since 1968..
Trump tried everything to appeal to his potential electorate in Pennsylvania: in Lancaster he held a televised meeting with voters, in Bucks he donned a McDonald’s uniform and handed out fries to local media, and in Oaks he promised to boost the vote. “fracking”, a practice very present in the state and which Harris now says she defends after having criticized it in 2020.
He also returned in October to Butler, the Pennsylvania town where he was the victim of an assassination attempt last July.
“We fight together. We endured together. We moved forward together. And right here in Pennsylvania, we bled together,” Trump said gravely at an event that served to add the tycoon Elon Musk to his usual campaign entourage.
Despite the insane triumph of recent Republican events, campaign strategists are aware that since 2000, the only Republican victory in the state was in 2016, when Trump won by just 40,000 votes.
The former president never achieved large majorities, and his only electoral victory came by a narrow margin in 2016. However, it was quite surprising to relocate Pennsylvania to the “swing” state label that Democrats yearn to recover.
