The entire presidential election may come down to just one state: Pennsylvania.
And it’s setting up to be the trickiest battleground for Vice President Kamala Harris to win.
“It’s going to be the toughest swing state,” said J.J. Abbott, a Democratic strategist in the state working on an outside effort to boost Harris. “Of the three blue wall states, it’s the most diverse in terms of the kinds of places” a candidate must compete in to be successful.
A second Democratic operative in the state simply said the race there will “be a nail-biter.”
Democrats and Republicans have dumped more advertising dollars into Pennsylvania than any other battleground state, underscoring its importance. Polling there shows a tighter contest now than at this time in 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, or in 2020 between Trump and Joe Biden. Trump significantly outperformed polling averages both cycles, narrowly beating Clinton and losing to Biden by a similarly slim margin.
Harris is facing a couple of other headwinds. Biden — the person she replaced at the top of the ticket — was born in Scranton and had deep, long-standing personal and political ties throughout the state. Harris, however, is just beginning to foster those connections. The Keystone State is also the only front-line battleground state where a woman has never won a race for president, governor or senator, nor has a woman been appointed to such a position.
“I think that she can win,” the second Pennsylvania Democratic operative said, calling the state a “fickle place.” “I see a lot of Democratic excitement right now. But that doesn’t mean the Republican enthusiasm won’t bounce back or isn’t really there. If the former president decides he’s going to stop being erratic, he has the same shot that he did in the last few cycles. And from a macro standpoint, it can’t get worse for Trump than it did in 2020, coming off the heels of a pandemic, all of the civil unrest.”
NBC News spoke with more than 20 Democratic and Republican operatives, candidates, officials and party insiders to gain a sense of how the fight for Pennsylvania is materializing as the post-Labor Day sprint begins.
An 'everywhere' campaign
The spending tells a story of just how important each campaign views Pennsylvania. Through the end of August, the Philadelphia media market saw the most ad spending of any in the country, with more than $82 million dropped there, according to data from the firm AdImpact.
Democrats this year have spent $114 million statewide, while Republicans have spent $102 million. That total has ramped up considerably in recent weeks, with Democrats spending more than $56 million last month and Republicans spending north of $52 million. Looking ahead, Democrats already have more than $84 million reserved for the fall there, while the Republican total tops $74 million.
Trump and his allies’ ads have, in part, focused on hitting Harris on the economy, while Harris’ have sought to boost her biography and talk up elements of her economic agenda.
Acknowledging how difficult a fight the state will be this fall, Democrats pointed to several reasons for optimism that they will be able to pull through. For starters, no MAGA-aligned candidate has won a top-of-the-ticket race in Pennsylvania since Trump in 2016. Losses included celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz and state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who both suffered crushing defeats for Senate and governor, respectively, last cycle.
They also see a large number of voters who cast ballots in the state’s Republican primary for Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who are ripe to be picked off, even though Haley has endorsed Trump.
The Harris campaign also feels it’s far better organized than Trump is — pointing to 350 staffers on the ground and 36 campaign offices across the state, mostly in Democratic-leaning ares but also in several rural or Republican places. Unlike in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Democrats feel freer to ramp up their ground game and have their candidates blitz the state.
Harris, who has made 10 visits to the state this year, is currently camping out in Pittsburgh as she prepares for her first presidential debate, while her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, made multiple stops along a two-day tour of Pennsylvania this week.
A Harris campaign official, who described Pennsylvania as “the most important state,” said their strategy is to campaign throughout the commonwealth, not limit appearances to Philadelphia, the collar counties, Pittsburgh and its close-in suburbs — the state’s Democratic strongholds.
“The Harris campaign is very committed to the idea we’re going to compete everywhere,” this person — who requested anonymity to speak candidly — said before pointing to the campaign’s preconvention bus tour through the western part of the state. “The fact they went not only just to blue Allegheny, but to places like Beaver County — Rochester, Beaver Falls, Aliquippa — shows that we are on offense.”
What’s more, this person said there aren’t regrets over Biden leaving the race. This person said they could’ve been convinced before the switch at the top of the ticket that Biden was better positioned to win Pennsylvania but since seeing the explosion of Democratic enthusiasm they said: “I think we’d all agree it has been a net positive.”
But Republicans here say they’re much more excited to run against the California Democrat than “Scranton Joe,” even though he was far less of a presence on the trail.
“Biden had a legitimate connection to Pennsylvania,” said Tim Murtaugh, a senior Trump campaign adviser and Pennsylvania native. “Kamala Harris can lie about a lot of things in her record, but she would be hard pressed to transform herself into a Scranton native.”
Frack, baby, frack
For the Trump campaign, Pennsylvania is a top priority, too, though its in-state footprint is not as large as Harris’, which was built up substantially earlier this year when Biden was still running.
Two developments a Trump campaign official made a point of highlighting were the recently launched “SwampTheVoteUSA” website they’ve built to help supporters request mail-in ballots. This person also said the campaign is engaging in volunteer trainings at its field offices as part of a broader effort to target “low propensity voters” in their communities — a plan to “meet people where they’re at,” this person said. The campaign has also put a focus on registering new voters and has been encouraged by recently released Pennsylvania registration numbers showing Republicans have made gains in some key counties.
But a major focus for the Trump campaign is to define Harris in the minds of voters who are already quite familiar with the former president. The Trump campaign has pointed to her past positions on fracking — a key economic driver in the state — and immigration as areas where it wanted to expend particular energy in defining Harris.
“She cannot get away from that — that was and is her position,” Murtaugh said of Harris’ previous support for a ban on fracking. “And Pennsylvania voters will know all about it.”
In 2019, Harris was supportive of a federal ban on fracking. But in a CNN interview last week, she pledged not to ban the practice as president, saying her perspective was shaped by clean energy gains that were made in the Biden administration without the passage of such a ban.
“I have made it clear that in our state, this is both a jobs issue and energy issue,” Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said in an interview, adding, “There’s no question it’s a significant issue in the state. And I was heartened when, right after her campaign was launched, her campaign made it clear that she wasn’t going to have a policy of banning fracking. That’s a consensus position.”
'A high-risk situation'
Harris has recently taken a position on another hot-button issue in the state, joining Biden, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, in coming out against Nippon Steel’s offer to acquire Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. The nominees in both parties have pledged to keep the company in American hands while the steelworkers union has opposed the acquisition. But others in western Pennsylvania — on both sides of the aisle — have expressed concerns that scuttling the deal could deal a big blow to the region’s economy.
“Leaning into the kind of populist streak of the electorate is really smart,” Abbott, the Democratic strategist, said of Harris’ strategy and messaging in the state. “One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot is there’s just a lot of parallels between some of the things that she’s leaning into in her campaign that are so parallel to what [Pennsylvania Gov. Josh] Shapiro was doing in 2022.
That year, Shapiro’s and John Fetterman’s campaigns made a very targeted effort to campaign in pro-Trump counties and in rural areas — which bore fruit for both as they were able to cut into the margins there. It’s clear the Harris campaign is interested in taking that approach.
Harris and Walz made multiple stops in Beaver County — where Trump won by 18 points in 2020 — on their bus tour to the convention last month. It was a series of stops that caught the attention of Democrats and Republicans in the state.
“So much in Pennsylvania is a margins game,” a second Harris campaign official said.
Casey said that in places like Beaver County, Democrats should talk about how investments from the American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure package have benefited areas outside of densely populated cities and suburbs.
“No one’s predicting a blue wave there,” Casey said of Beaver County. “But I thought it was a sign of respect, and also a sign that they’re going to compete in those communities.”
One Trump ally didn’t think the stop was particularly meaningful, saying it appeared to simply be on her path to leave the state and head toward Chicago, the site of the Democratic National Convention.
“She didn’t go out of her way to do that,” this person said. “I mean, if she starts showing up in Johnstown and starts showing up in Bethlehem, maybe I’m going to have some different takes here.’
Whether Harris is taking any page out of the Shapiro playbook, multiple Pennsylvania Republicans said they were thrilled she did not pick him to be her running mate.
“The reason why I was so adamant and against him is I believe if she would have picked Shapiro, that would have locked Pennsylvania up for her,” Allegheny County GOP Chairman Sam DeMarco said. “I was elated when she picked Walz.”
The Trump ally, who said Harris “still has the advantage” in the state that goes Democratic more often than not at the statewide level, said it “literally boggles the mind” that she did not pick Shapiro.
“He’s the most popular politician in that state, and it’s not close,” this person said. “It makes no sense.”
Shapiro has publicly praised the Walz selection and hinted in his statement following Harris’ veepstakes that he may have had some misgivings about taking the role.
In his interview with NBC News, Casey said either Shapiro or Walz would’ve been “a very strong choice” but ultimately “most voters are focused on the presidential candidate, and that’s why I don’t want to get too animated by what’s happening with the vice presidential pick.”
On the other hand, some Republicans here said they wanted to see a sharper focus from Trump on the core issues they think will get him and other Republicans across the finish line in the state this fall. There was appreciation for Vance being someone who was seen as doing exactly that.
“If Donald Trump can stick to issues and litigate the case against Kamala Harris, he will smoke her in Pennsylvania,” said state Rep. Josh Kail, who is heading the state House Republican’s campaign effort. “But that’s a big if.”
“It’s a great opportunity,” he added. “But it’s a high-risk situation.”
