Vice President Harris is seeing encouraging indicators in Pennsylvania, a state that many see as the important thing battleground within the combat for the White Home in November.
Many current polls have proven Harris holding a slim lead over former President Trump within the Keystone State, and he or she has a 53 p.c probability to win the state in Resolution Desk HQ and The Hill’s election forecast.
However some polls additionally underscore simply how shut the race in Pennsylvania can be, with a number of surveys in current days exhibiting Harris and Trump tied there — underscoring how fierce the battle for the state’s 19 electoral votes can be.
“I would rather be where we are than where they are,” mentioned Joe Corrigan, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist. “But nothing is over. It’s just all gas and no breaks until Nov. 5.”
On Thursday, a Washington Put up ballot confirmed Harris forward of Trump by 1 level, with a margin of error of three.6 proportion factors. A Franklin & Marshall Faculty ballot launched the identical day discovered Harris main Trump 49 p.c to 46 p.c, with a 4.1 level margin of error.
In the meantime, a Quinnipiac College ballot out Thursday confirmed Harris up by 6 factors in Pennsylvania with a margin of error of two.7 factors. The ballot marks the primary time both candidate has surpassed the 50 p.c mark within the state this cycle. However a Marist survey out the identical day confirmed the candidates deadlocked within the state with a margin of error of three.1 factors.
Each campaigns are crisscrossing the state this weekend, with Trump’s operating mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) attending occasions in Leesburg and Hershey on Saturday. On Sunday, second gentleman Doug Emhoff will journey to Bucks County, one of many state’s swing areas.
David City, who was a senior adviser to Trump’s marketing campaign in 2016, sounded an optimistic notice in regards to the former president’s possibilities within the Keystone State, however he acknowledged the closeness of the race.
“It is neck and neck,” City mentioned. “I like our chances still better than her chances in the state. I think if the election were held today, Trump would win, but again, I’m talking about win by 75,000 votes, win by 100,000 votes.”
City famous that on the bottom, the race feels extra prefer it did in 2016 than in 2020, noting President Biden’s shut ties to the state. And he pointed to questions on Harris’s coverage stances as a weak spot for her.
“You can say I am not going to ban fracking once, but you need to say it 300 times to kind of counter the 300 times you said it before,” City continued, referring to Harris’s reversal on the difficulty from when she ran for president in 2020.
Fracking in Pennsylvania has been a specific point of interest for Republicans of their assaults towards Harris, significantly within the southwestern area, the place it’s a main trade.
Harris instructed CNN final month her values “have not changed” and {that a} thriving, clear power economic system could be achieved with out banning fracking.
“People, when they come into new information, can come to conclusions that are different from the conclusions that they’ve held in the past,” Corrigan mentioned, relating to Harris’s reversal.
Democrats say they’re cautiously optimistic about Harris’s standing within the polls and level to her favorability rankings over Trump. A Suffolk College ballot discovered that 49 p.c of seemingly Pennsylvania voters had a positive view of Harris, whereas 47 p.c mentioned that they had an unfavorable view. Trump, alternatively, had a 43 p.c favorability score and a 54 p.c unfavorable score.
“If you look at the vice president’s favorability numbers in Pennsylvania, I think the fact she’s still above water speaks to the fact that people trust her more on any number of issues,” Corrigan mentioned.
Harris’s allies additionally tout what they are saying is a powerful marketing campaign infrastructure and presence within the state.
The vp made headlines final week when she made a marketing campaign cease in Johnstown within the western portion of the state. The city will not be thought-about as deeply crimson because the area it’s in, but it surely nonetheless underscores Harris’s technique of looking for to chip away at Trump’s margins in Republican strongholds. The transfer is harking back to the 2022 midterms, when Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) waded into extra rural, conservative components of the state.
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz would do well spending a few days in the interior of the Commonwealth,” mentioned former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa), a senior coverage adviser at Nossaman. “There are gettable independent and blue dog votes there, but those voters need to see Harris and Walz, assess them up close, and develop some comfort with them. The voters there need to hear directly that a Harris administration will not end fracking, will not take away guns and will keep the nation secure.”
Republicans argue the technique employed by Shapiro and Fetterman within the state’s rural counties gained’t play the identical manner two years later, noting Shapiro’s weak Republican opponent in state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) and Fetterman’s connections with rural voters within the western a part of the state.
“She can go to every rural community in the state and, bluntly, it’s not going to make much of a difference. She doesn’t connect with them. They don’t trust her,” a Pennsylvania-based GOP strategist and former gubernatorial candidate.
Trump will search to run up the margins within the state’s conservative and rural strongholds, whereas Harris will search to maximise turnout within the state’s most populated areas within the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas.
The race might come all the way down to a handful of counties that voted for former President Obama in 2012 however flipped for Trump. These counties embrace Erie, Luzerne, and Northampton. Trump retained Luzerne County in 2020, however misplaced Northampton and Erie in 2020. A USA As we speak/Suffolk College ballot launched earlier this week confirmed Harris main Trump 50 p.c to 45 p.c in Northampton and 48 p.c to 44 p.c in Erie.
Whereas the ballot numbers appears to be like good for her, many Republicans are nonetheless expressing skepticism that she is going to resonate with voters within the Keystone State.
“With Kamala Harris, there’s lots of question marks,” mentioned City, the GOP strategist. “What people know of her is what they saw in the 2020 campaign.”
Alex Gangitano contributed.
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