US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will hold battle campaign events this weekend in key political battleground states in Pennsylvania.
The former president was scheduled to hold a rally Saturday in Wilkes-Barre, in the state’s northeast, while the vice president is on a bus trip to western Pennsylvania before the Democratic National Convention begins Sunday in Pittsburgh. Monday in Chicago.
Separately, Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walls had planned to hold a rally in La Vista, Nebraska, on Saturday.
A step NYT/Siena College A poll released Saturday shows Harris leading Trump by 50% to 45% in Arizona and 49% to 47% in North Carolina, while trailing by four points in Nevada and Georgia.
But three key states in the so-called Rust Belt — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — continue to be the focus of competitive campaigns, with Pennsylvania and its 19 Electoral College votes seen as key to both candidates’ chances of victory in November.
Since 2008, all three have been reliable in the results of national elections. Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes, along with Michigan’s 15 and Wisconsin’s 10, are usually enough to put a candidate ahead of the race to secure the 270 votes needed to win the White House.
Election prognosticator Nate Silver reckons Pennsylvania more than doubles as a “tipping point” state for presidential victories this fall.
Both campaigns are looking for support among white, non-college-educated voters, with the Harris-Wallace ticket looking to boost support among suburban voters and Trump and his rival in heavily black urban areas. Comrade, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, hopes to be defeated.
Both campaign strategies are considered “big win, small loss” but have different focuses: seeking large margins for Democrats in Pennsylvania, such as the cities and suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, while limiting losses in rural areas of the state, such as Beaver. County, near Butler, where Trump was shot by an assassin last month.
Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes in 2016, a margin of less than one percent, while Biden won by more than 80,000 votes in 2020, a 1.2% margin.
Harris leads Trump in the state by more than 2%, according to pollster FiveThirtyEight. Latest Polls – By Quinnipiac And By The New York Times and Siena College – Harris led the state among likely voters by three and four percentage points, respectively.
“The Trump campaign believes there’s a little more juice in the orange for them in the heart of Northeast Pennsylvania,” said Chris Nichols, a consultant to the Pennsylvania Republican Party. told the Philadelphia Inquirer Last week.
Saturday’s Trump rally will draw about 8,000 people at the indoor Mohegan Sun Arena. The Trump campaign said the candidate would return to Butler in October, but no date has been announced.
Pennsylvania receives more campaign spending than any other battleground state. The Wall Street Journal has calculated Of the $110 million spent in seven swing states since July 22, when Joe Biden dropped out of his re-election bid, $42m was paid to the state.
Democratic and Republican political groups have allocated $114 million in advertising time from late August to November in Pennsylvania — more than double the projected $55 million in Arizona.
The Pennsylvania push is only set to intensify. Harris and Walls and their spouses will make stops in Allegheny and Beaver counties on Sunday, while Trump will respond to Harris’ latest economic policy proposals at an event in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday and Vance will be in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania will be the focus again when ABC hosts the first Harris-Trump debate in Philadelphia on September 10.
Reuters contributed reporting
