Trump and Harris fight for votes in Pennsylvania with rally and bus tour

By Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax

WILKES-BARRE, Pennsylvania — Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris will hold competing campaign rallies this weekend in Pennsylvania, the politically contested state that could be the most important in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Trump, the former president, will hold a rally in Wilkes-Barre in the northeast of the state on Saturday. Vice President Harris will take a bus tour of western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh on Sunday before the Democratic National Convention begins in Chicago on Monday.

Pennsylvania was one of three Rust Belt states, along with Wisconsin and Michigan, that enabled Trump's surprise victory in the 2016 election. President Joe Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, brought the trio back into Democrats' hands in 2020.

These three states are considered true pioneers: they are the only US states that have voted on the future president in every election cycle since 2008.

Pennsylvania could be the biggest winner in this year's election, with 19 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House (compared to 15 in Michigan and 10 in Wisconsin).

A statistical model by election forecaster Nate Silver estimates that Pennsylvania is twice as likely as any other state to be the “tipping point” state – the state where the electoral college votes put either Harris or Trump in the lead.

Harris's entry into the race after Biden ended his re-election campaign last month has upended the campaign and wiped out the lead Trump had built in the final weeks of Biden's shaky campaign. Harris is more than two percentage points ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania, according to polling website FiveThirtyEight.

Flooding the radio waves with advertising

Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by about 44,000 votes, a margin of less than one percentage point, while Biden prevailed in 2020 by just over 80,000 votes, a margin of 1.2 percent.

Both campaigns have made the state a top priority, flooding the airwaves with advertising. Of the more than $110 million spent on advertising in seven swing states since Biden's exit in late July, about $42 million has been spent in Pennsylvania, more than twice as much as in any other state, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing data from tracking site AdImpact.

According to AdImpact, Democratic and Republican groups have already reserved $114 million worth of advertising time in Pennsylvania from late August through the election, more than double the $55 million reserved in Arizona, the next highest amount.

The Harris team said Saturday that it plans to spend at least $370 million nationwide on digital and television advertising between Labor Day (Sept. 2) and Election Day.

The swing states that are considered crucial for the election victory also include Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Georgia.

New polls released by The New York Times on Saturday showed Harris leading Trump among likely voters in Arizona, 50% to 45%, and North Carolina, 49% to 47%. The former president's lead narrowed in Nevada, 47% to 49%, and Georgia, 46% to 50%. A Trump campaign pollster said the poll results underestimated the Republican candidate's support.

Trump and Harris have each visited Pennsylvania more than half a dozen times this year. Trump was injured in an assassination attempt at his rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.

He has said he will return to Butler in October and also announced he will speak on the economy at a campaign rally in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday. Trump's running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, will also speak in Philadelphia the same day.

Trump's trip to Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County on Saturday is aimed at solidifying the support of the white, non-college-educated voters who helped him win in 2016. The working-class district voted Democrat for decades before shifting heavily to Trump in 2016, a pattern similar to other similar regions across the country.

Trump won Luzerne by 14.4 percentage points in 2020, a smaller margin than in 2016, when he had a 19.4-point lead. With Biden no longer in the race, Trump likely sees room for gains in that part of the state, says Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College.

“This is the kind of region where Trump has a lot of strengths,” Borick said, referring to the northeastern region of the state. “Small gains in a region like this could certainly have some impact on his ability to retake Pennsylvania.”

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will make several stops in Allegheny and Beaver counties on Sunday, the campaign said. The tour will mark the first time Harris, Walz and their spouses have campaigned together since her first presidential rally in Philadelphia earlier this month.

Pennsylvania was at the heart of Biden's winning 2020 strategy in the Rust Belt states: limiting Trump's lead among white working-class voters while building majorities among suburban voters and increasing turnout in urban areas with large black populations.

The Harris team is pursuing a similar “win big, lose little” strategy, aiming for large majorities in the cities and suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh while limiting losses in smaller counties like Beaver County, where Trump won 58% of the vote in 2020.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications.