Must-win Pennsylvania still bafflingly close as Harris and Trump fight for edge

Kamala Harris stood before a cheering crowd of hundreds of her supporters in Philadelphia and promised that she would deliver in Pennsylvania, a battleground state considered a must-win in the electoral college.

“Nine days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, and we know this is going to be a tight race until the very end,” the vice-president told supporters in Philadelphia last weekend. “And make no mistake: we will win.”

And yet, just a day earlier at a rally in State College, Donald Trump declared: “We’re going to pull this off. It’ll be the greatest victory in the history of our country for all of us – not for me, for all of us.”

The contradictory comments reflect a neck-and-neck race in Pennsylvania that is hurtling toward the finish line with no clear frontrunner. The victor of Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, the most of any battleground state, will probably win the electoral college and determine the trajectory of the country for the next four years.

Trump supporters watch a live feed of Donald Trump’s rally outside Madison Square Garden in New York, on Sunday. Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/EPA

Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 points in 2020, four years after Trump carried the state by 0.7 points. According to the Guardian’s polling tracker, Trump currently holds a lead of less than one point over Harris in the state.

Conversations with voters in Pennsylvania underscore how close the election is, often to the bafflement of both Democrats and Republicans. And the outcome could perhaps shift with an unexpected turns of events, such as Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last weekend. It was there that a comedian took the stage before Trump and insulted Puerto Rico, calling it an “island of garbage”. As pundits were quick to note afterwards, Pennsylvania is home to more than 470,000 Puerto Ricans.

For Democrats, the focus is on firing up voters in Pennsylvania cities such as Philadelphia and Scranton and their immediate suburbs, home to many women and college-educated voters they view as amenable to their message of protecting democracy and abortion. Republicans are more focused on winning white working-class voters and a growing number of young men of color, by attacking Harris over the president’s immigration policies and the high inflation of his early presidency.

This dynamic is exemplified by Lackawanna county, which includes Scranton. Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 by 3.4 points, but she decisively lost most of its neighboring counties, as white working-class voters flocked to Trump.

Four years later, Biden won Lackawanna county by 8.4 points, though Trump’s persistent strength with working-class voters in the neighboring counties helped him keep the race in Pennsylvania close.

The outcome here will depend, as it always does, on turnout, and Democrats are counting on a robust ground game to help them deliver a win. The culinary union Unite Here, for instance endorsed Harris in August and has knocked on more than 1m doors in Pennsylvania this election cycle, with a goal of surpassing 1.25m by 5 November.

Jaime Hunt, a 22-year-old organizer with Unite Here, walked through South Philadelphia on a recent sunny Saturday, asking voters whether they planned to vote by mail, and encouraging them to fill out their ballots on the spot if they had already received them.

Harris supporters stand outside the Bucks county administration building in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on Thursday. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

The canvassing efforts of Unite Here and other pro-Harris groups could make a critical difference in Pennsylvania. In 2020, Biden narrowly defeated Trump in the state by roughly 80,000 votes, in part by maximizing his advantage in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs. This year, based on her many conversations with voters, Hunt is confident in Harris’s chances.

“There is also a lot of – a good number – of Republicans who are voting for her. A lot of people are switching,” Hunt said. “I think it’s going to be her who wins.”

Daniel Levin, a regional organizing director for the youth voting group NextGen America, has spent months on Philadelphia’s college campuses getting thousands of students registered to vote, and now helping them make a plan to vote for Harris and other Democrats.

Despite concerns over whether young voters will support Harris, particularly because of widespread outrage over the Biden administration’s response to the war in Gaza, Levin predicted high youth turnout in Philadelphia. On a recent Friday, he convinced a young voter at Temple University to support Harris after explaining how her policies could benefit low-income residents of the city.

“This is the place to be optimistic that we’re going to get a huge turnout,” Levin said. “And I think we will this year. I really think we will in Philadelphia, and we need to to carry [Pennsylvania].”

In contrast to the broad network of pro-Harris groups working to turn out left-leaning voters, the Trump campaign’s comparatively meager ground operation in battleground states such as Pennsylvania has stoked concern among his allies. Trump and the Republican National Committee have instead directed more of their attention to combating alleged voter fraud, most recently highlighting concerns about potentially fraudulent registrations in Lancaster county.

Despite Trump’s inattention to his turnout operation, he has managed to keep the race in Pennsylvania highly competitive, and his most ardent supporters seem as motivated as ever to cast their ballots for him.

“I’ve never in my life seen a movement like this,” said John Spatig Jr, 46, who attended a rally by Trump in Allentown and lives in Northampton county, one of the biggest bellwethers in the state. He said the top issue for him was the government response for the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine mandates.

“How is the government going to guarantee me that there will never be a lockdown?” he said.

Donald Trump campaigns in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Marilynn Raymond, 77, a retired bookkeeper from Reading, said at Trump’s rally in Allentown on Tuesday that she didn’t believe the polls showing a close race.

“All the crowds that Trump has done through the whole election far outweigh Kamala,” she said. “I think he’s way ahead.”

As this campaigning season nears its close, Pennsylvania voters seem to be approaching election day with a mix of fatigue, excitement and fear.

The fatigue was on display as Hunt made her rounds through South Philadelphia, with one resident responding to her knock by yelling through the door: “No one is home!”

Both parties have already poured hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of campaign ads into Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia especially. The Philadelphia-based ABC affiliate WPVI completely sold out of ad inventory through election day by 24 October.

Alex Pearlman, a comedian from the Philadelphia suburbs with a large following on TikTok, met with Tim Walz before a rally in Scranton, and he said he urged the Democratic vice-presidential nominee to keep voters energized for the final stretch.

Tim Walz campaigns in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on 25 October. Photograph: Christopher Dolan/AP

“Everybody’s tired,” Pearlman said. “Everyone’s been pretty set, the entire time. I think most people were holding their breath just to see who the candidates were going to be after the primaries. So now that we’re at this point, almost everyone has kind of made up their mind.”

That dynamic has forced Harris and Trump to fight over an ever-diminishing number of undecided voters as they race toward election day. According to an Emerson College survey conducted in late October, only 3% of likely Pennsylvania voters were still undecided. And yet, that 3% could make all the difference, given that the state has been decided by roughly one point in the past two presidential elections.

The narrow margins have triggered frustration and confusion among Democrats and Republicans in Pennsylvania. How, they ask, could the race for president still be this close?

“[Harris] is going to win it, but I don’t believe the polls. I can’t believe that we’re 50-50 tied,” said Kathy Andrews, a 64-year-old voter from Philadelphia who attended Harris’s rally there. “I am giving a lot of credit to the American people, that everyone has a modicum of common sense.”

Morgan Pastner Jaffe, a 32-year-old voter from West Chester, said the possibility of Trump’s victory makes her feel “very scared for the future – for women, for people of color and all different religions as well”.

“She has to win or we’re screwed,” Jaffe said at Harris’s rally.

With the race still a toss-up, the Trump campaign, wary of alienating a critical voting bloc, has tried to distance itself from the comedian who made the comment about Puerto Rico at Madison Square Garden.

Rich Patti, 71, said at Trump’s Allentown rally that he didn’t think those remarks would hurt Trump’s chances with Latino voters.

“They’re the backbone of our country and the backbones are hurting right now,” he said. “They work hard, they want the same thing. They want to be able to pay their bills, live well.”

People of Puerto Rican descent in the state have suggested otherwise. “I was absolutely frustrated, I was angry – but I was not surprised,” Philadelphia councilmember Quetcy Lozada told the Guardian.

The high stakes of the election are on display throughout Pennsylvania. Of the many signs adorning lawns and lamp-posts in Philadelphia, some eschew the traditional “Harris-Walz 2024” for slogans such as: “Defend Choice!” and “Defend Democracy!”

“I don’t think you can walk around the city of Philadelphia and not know how important it is to people,” said Shane Ringressy, Pennsylvania organizing director for NextGen. “So I will say that Philadelphia itself, including all the young people in the city, definitely seem like they’re ready to fight and do their part.”