A close race in the most fiercely contested battleground state of the 2024 US presidential election.

VOV.VN - Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are pouring more money, time, and effort into Pennsylvania than any other state, as top strategists assess it as the most likely swing state to decide the outcome of the White House race.

When Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris promoted her economic platform, she went to Pittsburgh – the industrial heart of Pennsylvania. When announcing her running mate, she went to Philadelphia. And when choosing a location for her first campaign rally with former President Barack Obama on October 10th, she returned to Pittsburgh once again. These locations are all in Pennsylvania. Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump also allocated a significant portion of his advertising budget to Pennsylvania and has held more rallies in the state than any other battleground state since Harris officially entered the race for the White House.

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have poured more money, time, and effort into Pennsylvania than any other battleground state. (Photo: NY Times)

The key to winning

In fact, there are seven key battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada. All of them play a crucial role in determining which candidate wins.

However, Pennsylvania stands out as the state most likely to change the election, according to top strategists for both Harris and Trump. Both candidates have poured more money, time, and effort into Pennsylvania than anywhere else. The total television advertising spending by Democrats and Republicans on Pennsylvania is $350 million, $142 million more than the second-ranked state, Michigan. There are three reasons why both candidates are focusing their efforts on Pennsylvania. First, the state's size: its 19 electoral votes are the largest prize among battleground states. Second, opinion polls have shown both candidates receiving roughly equal support in the state for months. Third, mathematically, it would be very difficult for either Trump or Harris to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win without winning Pennsylvania.

Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Photo: NY Times.

The margin of victory in Pennsylvania is incredibly small. In the 2016 election (Trump won Pennsylvania), the difference was only 44,292 votes, less than the number of seats in the Pittsburgh Steelers' football stadium. “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” Trump said at a recent campaign rally in the state.

"A miniature version of America"

What makes Pennsylvania a fierce battleground state for both parties is the remarkable combination of its demographic and geographical factors. It's home to urban centers like Philadelphia with large concentrations of Black voters – a key source of Democratic strength. The state also boasts rapidly developing suburbs, predominantly white and highly educated, but whose Republican support has waned during the Trump administration. Pennsylvania has struggling industrial towns where Trump needs to maximize his vote, and smaller cities experiencing a boom in Latino immigrant populations where Harris seeks to expand her influence. Pennsylvania also has a large, albeit declining, rural population. White voters without college degrees, loyal supporters of Trump, still make up about half of the vote. "Pennsylvania is almost a miniature version of the United States," said Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis (Democrat).

A close race for votes.

The campaign in Pennsylvania is fierce. Harris's campaign is running online ads targeting voters in predominantly Hispanic areas of eastern Pennsylvania, and ads featuring Republicans who voted for her are being shown on 130 rural radio stations. According to a member of Trump's campaign team, the former president has sent his running mate, Senator JD Vance (Ohio), to more stops in Pennsylvania than anywhere else. The state is also where Trump held an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.

Former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, September 2024. Photo: NY Times

On October 2nd, Mr. Trump returned to Pennsylvania to participate in two rallies in Scranton and Reading. These were his eighth and ninth rallies in the state since Ms. Harris entered the race. While former First Lady Melania Trump has yet to appear at any campaign events, Ms. Harris's husband, Doug Emhoff, had a beer while watching a recent football game in suburban Philadelphia and spoke at a campaign concert in Pittsburgh. Both sides are trying to please key activists and officials in Pennsylvania. It's no coincidence that at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions, delegates from Pennsylvania are seated in prime positions, second only to delegates from the candidates' home states. “Pennsylvania is the center of the universe,” said Cliff Maloney, who leads the effort to encourage Republican voters to vote by mail in the state. Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis said that the last time he met Harris, he jokingly suggested she rent an apartment in the state. The current Vice President just laughed, but in fact, Harris visited Pennsylvania three days a week in September, a remarkable frequency for a battleground state. Governor Josh Shapiro, although not chosen as Harris's vice presidential running mate, made numerous appearances to support her, including at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, at the launch of a bus tour in Philadelphia, and at another event with writer Shonda Rhimes in a Philadelphia suburb. According to Harris's campaign, she currently has more than 400 salaried employees in over 50 offices in the state. Trump's campaign declined to comment on its staff in Pennsylvania but said it has more than 20 offices there.

Optimism on both sides

Currently, Pennsylvania is the only state where Democrats control one chamber of the state legislature and Republicans control the other. The state's House of Representatives is separated by a single seat. The state is also home to one of the most expensive Senate races in the U.S., and two fiercely contested House seats could change control of Congress . Democrats are optimistic that they have won key gubernatorial and Senate races in recent years, including 2022. But Republicans are equally optimistic as the state has seen a sharp increase in registered voters switching their support to the GOP. When Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016, there were approximately 916,000 more Democrats than Republicans. As of October 7th, that number had dropped to 325,485. Earlier this year, one of Philadelphia's most competitive suburban counties, Bucks County, leaned Republican in terms of registered voters. By September, Luzerne County, a suburb of Scranton, had become the latest county to shift to the Republican party. One "X factor" was the impact of the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler County in July. In interviews, some Trump supporters predicted the incident could spur more Trump supporters to vote. Abraham Reynolds, 23, who runs a cleaning business in Pennsylvania and was at a rally in Butler in July, said, "It really encouraged me to go out and take action."