Trump campaigns in 'make or break' Pennsylvania

Former President Trump barnstormed Pennsylvania on Wednesday as he and his campaign have made clear the commonwealth could make or break his chances of winning in November.

Trump held rallies in President Biden’s hometown of Scranton and in Reading. It was his fourth visit to Pennsylvania since the start of September, and it came four days after he held a rally in front of thousands of supporters in Butler, the site of an assassination attempt that wounded him.

The former president railed against Vice President Harris over rising costs under the Biden administration, with a focus on energy costs and Harris’s past support of a ban on fracking, which is a particularly important industry in Pennsylvania. Harris has since said she does not back a ban on fracking.

"If Kamala Harris gets four more years, she will annihilate the Pennsylvania energy industry, plunging communities across this commonwealth into darkness and despair,” Trump said in Scranton. “Your jobs will be down and your salaries will follow."

Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by fewer than 70,000 votes, then lost it in 2020 by roughly 80,000 votes. Experts expect a similarly tight margin in November.

A Quinnipiac University poll published Wednesday showed Harris leading Trump among likely voters in Pennsylvania, with 49 percent support to his 46 percent.

A Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of polls from Pennsylvania shows a close race, with the two candidates essentially deadlocked.

Trump allies said the key to victory will be to drive up his margins in working-class parts of the state such as Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Reading and Johnstown and cut into Harris’s margins in the areas around Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Erie County, which backed Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, will also be closely watched.

David Urban, a Pennsylvania native who has advised Trump’s multiple White House campaigns on efforts in the commonwealth, argued the path to victory for the former president got easier with Biden dropping out of the race.

“Joe Biden was kind of a third senator from Pennsylvania,” Urban said, pointing to the president’s Scranton roots and his proximity to the commonwealth while representing Delaware.

“People knew Joe Biden, they knew who he was. It was a much steeper hill to climb to beat Joe Biden,” Urban said. “Kamala Harris, nobody knows who she is. And she’s been floundering trying to define herself, at the same time trying to distance herself from the current administration.”

Both the Trump and Harris campaigns have been clear-eyed about Pennsylvania’s important role in November. During a stop in Butler last Saturday, Trump told supporters, “If we win Pennsylvania, we will win the whole thing.”

Harris next Monday will make her 10th visit to Pennsylvania since she replaced President Biden atop the Democratic ticket with a visit to Erie. Former President Obama will hold his first solo rally of the campaign in Pittsburgh on Thursday.

Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes are likely to be pivotal for either Trump or Harris in their path to securing 270. 

Harris’s clearest path to victory is to win the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, plus the electoral vote for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. Losing Pennsylvania would mean Harris would likely have to win North Carolina and another battleground, such as Nevada.

For Trump, winning Pennsylvania would mean he would only need to defend North Carolina and flip a state he won in 2016 then lost in 2020, such as Georgia or Wisconsin, to get to 270.

“If there's one make-or-break state, it’s Pennsylvania,” Urban said.

Pennsylvania is in many ways a “snapshot of America,” Urban said, noting it contains urban, rural, suburban and exurban areas. Its proximity to Washington, D.C., and New York also makes it easier for candidates to make a quick campaign stop.

Both campaigns have spent significant time and resources on Pennsylvania, pouring millions of dollars in advertising into the state and sending top surrogates to meet with voters.

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), has made numerous trips to Pennsylvania.

Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk plans to make campaign appearances in Pennsylvania to boost Trump in the final weeks before the election. Musk’s visits to the commonwealth will be backed in association with America PAC, the pro-Trump super PAC the billionaire helped found that has taken a leading role in Trump’s get-out-the-vote efforts.

Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), embarked on a bus tour of Pennsylvania last week alongside Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), a finalist to serve as Harris’s running mate, has stumped for the vice president across the state.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) was joined at an event Wednesday in Pennsylvania by three former Trump White House officials who have become outspoken critics of their old boss: Sarah Matthews, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Cassidy Hutchinson.

Trump told supporters in Scranton on Wednesday that he intended to hold rallies in more traditionally Democratic areas in the closing weeks of the campaign, including in New York, New Jersey and California.

But his allies signaled Pennsylvania would likely remain atop the list of places for the former president to visit as the Trump campaign seeks to turn out as many supporters as possible.

“The one thing you can count on with Donald Trump is he will run through the tape,” Urban said. “He will not let his foot off the accelerator between now and Nov. 5. And that means there will be a lot more visits to Pennsylvania.”