With its 19 electoral votes, whoever wins Pennsylvania will have a good chance at winning the presidential election.
The Keystone State is critical for former President Donald Trump, but considered a must-win for Vice President Kamala Harris. Losing would significantly complicate her path to victory.
Both candidates are spending the most time and money in Pennsylvania, holding dozens of events and pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into swaying voters.
Here’s everything you need to know about Pennsylvania.
Polling
The polls show Trump with a tiny 0.4% sliver of a lead in Pennsylvania, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Just before President Joe Biden suspended his campaign in July, Trump had a four point lead in Pennsylvania, a sizable lead for this state. As soon as Biden dropped out and Harris was informally installed as the Democratic nominee, she spiked in the polls, but she never led Trump by more than one point. Harris topped out in mid-September at 48.5% to Trump’s 47.5%, according to the RCP average.
At this point in 2020, Biden was leading in Pennsylvania by 4.3 points. He won the state by a single percentage point. In 2016, Hillary Clinton, who narrowly lost the state, was leading by 5 points.
If Harris loses Pennsylvania, she will have to win both Michigan and Wisconsin and one swing state in both the south and west to win the White House.
How Pennsylvania Has Voted In The Past
A true swing state, Pennsylvania has flipped between red and blue over the past few presidential elections.
In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania by approximately 81,000 votes. In 2016, Trump won the state by more than 44,000 votes.
Former President Barack Obama won Pennsylvania by huge margins both times he ran for president — an estimated 620,000 votes in 2008 and 310,000 votes in 2012.
Before Trump flipped Pennsylvania red in 2016, no Republican had won the state since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Ronald Reagan won Pennsylvania in both 1980 and 1984.
What The Candidates Are Saying
Trump has made a strong play for Pennsylvania’s blue-collar voters, emphasizing energy independence, specifically his support for fracking and coal mining, two major industries in the state.
He has also promised to prioritize domestic manufacturing, arguing it will create jobs in Pennsylvania’s steelworking industry, which was deeply affected by the decline of American manufacturing in recent decades.
Meanwhile, Harris has hammered the abortion issue, especially in the more blue areas like the Philadelphia suburbs. Her campaign is trying to mobilize minority voters in urban areas, although Democrats have complained internally that she may not be doing enough to mobilize that demographic.
What Early Voting Shows
Already, 1.2 million early ballots have been cast in Pennsylvania. For context, the state saw nearly 7 million total votes in 2020.
Pennsylvania is the one swing state where Democrats are enjoying an early lead in early voting — about 60% of those who have voted early are registered Democrats, although that does not guarantee they voted for Harris.
Pennsylvania does not have widespread early in-person voting, and Trump supporters tend to vote in person. This means Republicans could show up in large numbers on Election Day.
When Can We Expect A Result?
Pennsylvania’s presidential election results are likely to be delayed several days this election cycle, just as they were in 2020, due to the time it takes to count mail-in ballots.
The delay is caused by Pennsylvania law, which does not allow mail-in ballots to be processed until 7 a.m. on Election Day.
In 2020, Election Day was November 4, but Pennsylvania was not called for Biden by major news outlets until November 7. The call put Biden over 270 electoral votes, making him the president-elect.
The process could end up being faster this time, since Pennsylvania is seeing fewer applications for mail-in or absentee ballots so far. As of last week, there were 1.9 million mail ballot applications compared with 2.7 million total mail ballots cast in 2020, according to state data.
In the 2022 midterms, a flurry of recount demands delayed Pennsylvania certifying the results until December 22.
This year though, the state must certify election results by December 11, about five weeks after Election Day, under a new federal deadline.
Al Schmidt, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, will likely be in the spotlight as the election gets underway. The secretary oversees the state’s election process, including certifying the results. Local election boards submit the unofficial returns to the secretary’s office, which conducts a final review and certifies the official election results.
Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who was widely expected to be Harris’ running mate, will then formally affirm the election results and issue a list of the electors chosen for the Electoral College.
What Counties To Watch
Many of the lawsuits challenging the 2020 election in Pennsylvania targeted votes in Philadelphia County; Allegheny County, which includes the Pittsburgh area; and Montgomery County, the third most populous county in the state.
These three areas will be heavily scrutinized during the 2024 election.
As far as bellwethers, Erie County in the northwest corner of the state and Lackawanna County in the Scranton area will also be watched closely. Erie frequently flip-flops between red and blue, and Lackawanna is notable because President Joe Biden is from Scranton, and because it has a lot of blue-collar voters, a bloc that has increasingly turned towards Trump.
Voting Issues From 2020 To Now
Pennsylvania’s 2020 election was fiercely challenged by Republicans on many fronts.
Republicans lost a challenge relating to Pennsylvania allowing mail-in ballots to be received up to three days after Election Day, even if they were not postmarked. The more than 10,000 ballots affected by this challenge would not have changed the election result.
This year, however, mail-in ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
The Trump campaign sued after their poll watchers were kicked out by local officials from “satellite election offices” in Philadelphia and several other counties, where some early votes were cast. A local judge rejected the suit, ruling that these locations were not official polling places. Philadelphia is continuing to use satellite offices this election.
Republicans also unsuccessfully sued over voters being allowed to correct mistakes on their ballot, as well as over Pennsylvania not requiring a voter’s signature on their ballot to resemble the signature on the voter’s registration form.
Ballot drop boxes were hugely controversial in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Pennsylvania allowed drop boxes for mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. The Trump campaign sued, arguing that drop boxes increase the risk of voter fraud, but a federal judge threw out that lawsuit. Some areas of the state are still using drop boxes this election cycle.
Several broader lawsuits also failed in 2020.
A Republican lawsuit arguing the state’s expansion to no-excuse absentee ballots was unconstitutional was dismissed. That case could have seen 2.5 million mail-in ballots out of the state’s 6.9 million total ballots thrown out.
The state continues to have no-excuse mail-in voting today.
Texas challenged Pennsylvania and other swing states’ 2020 election results, but the Supreme Court threw out that case.
Election certification was also a target of several challenges from the Trump campaign and other Republicans. Claims about dead people voting in Pennsylvania circulated as well, although there was not much hard evidence of this happening frequently. Pennsylvania completed an audit involving a random sample of more than 45,000 ballots that supported Biden’s victory.
This year, ballot concerns have already popped up in Pennsylvania.
In Lancaster County west of Philadelphia, a criminal investigation is underway after election workers flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Two other counties received similar forms, the county’s district attorney said.
Last week, election officials in Bucks County, also near Philadelphia, said a viral video appearing to show mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed did not show “authentic” ballot materials. The video was reported to the FBI nevertheless.
Earlier this week, the Republican National Committee petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn a Pennsylvania court’s ruling that election officials must count “provisional ballots” cast by voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected because they are sent in without a required “secrecy envelope.”
Other Races To Watch
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey (D), who is seeking a fourth term, is running against Republican Dave McCormick, a successful businessman and Army veteran.
McCormick has run a pro-fracking campaign and has also called for border security and reigning in spending. Casey, at one time a rare pro-life Democrat, has emphasized his support for abortion and has argued that corporate price gouging is causing inflation.
There are no statewide ballot measures on the ballot in Pennsylvania this year.