Pennsylvania
The presidential race is consuming battleground Pennsylvania. What do voters have to say? • Nebraska Examiner
PITTSBURGH — The 2024 presidential contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could come down to Pennsylvania, and nobody knows that more than the Pennsylvanians inundated by the campaigns.
The commonwealth, with its nearly 13 million residents and 19 Electoral College votes, carries the biggest prize for the winner among the seven swing states.
Pennsylvania’s polarized electorate is nearly equally split in its support for Democrat Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, and Republican Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance. The latest polling shows the race on a knife’s edge.
States Newsroom traveled throughout western Pennsylvania for five days in mid-October, speaking to voters from Johnstown to Erie, who shared their hopes and fears about the race. They talked about immigration and abortion access and inflation and fentanyl overdoses. Some were overcome with emotion discussing the high stakes in their decisions.
Erica Owen, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh, said Pennsylvania is a “microcosm” of U.S. political narratives.
“It is an economically diverse state. We have manufacturing, we have tech, we have agriculture, we have a whole range of economic industries that I think influence folks’ political preferences,” said Owen, with the university’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
Globalization and technology changed the Rust Belt state and transformed some communities “in a very negative way.”
“And so a lot of what we see is both the Republican and Democratic parties trying to reach those voters and offer a path forward to a better future,” Owen said.
Here’s what Pennsylvania voters said in interviews:
‘Divisive and full of hate’
Maria Figueroa waited in line with her family for hours Monday to see Harris speak at the Erie Insurance Arena on Oct. 14. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Figueroa, 42, said she would vote based on immigration reform and women’s rights, particularly reproductive health care.
“I’m the daughter of an immigrant. I’m a female, and my son is an IVF baby,” said Figueroa, whose family recently moved to Erie from northern Virginia.
In vitro fertilization has become politically hazardous for Republicans who court extreme anti-abortion voters.
Her 3-year-old son Santiago wore a t-shirt that read “IVF Babies for Harris 2024.” He clung to Figueroa and her husband, David Figueroa, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Ecuador.
Figueroa criticized Trump and Republicans as “very divisive, very full of hate, and they like to instill fear.”
“They make immigrants seem like this evil group of people that are here to take over the U.S. And I mean, all the immigrants I know are hardworking people that work in the restaurant industry, construction, and in California picking the vegetables,” Figueroa said.
Trump and Vance notoriously spread false accounts of legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, stealing and eating pets, and of Venezuelan immigrants overrunning Aurora, Colorado — thrusting both localities in the national spotlight for weeks.
Trump also blamed Haitian migrants for problems in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a Rust Belt town that has long been struggling with blight and population loss since the collapse of the steel industry and other manufacturing.
‘We live for our kids and our grandkids’
Tony and Karri Reda walked out feeling impressed after a Vance appearance in Johnstown. Vance spoke to a crowd of a couple hundred supporters Oct. 12 at JWF Industries, a manufacturer of tactical military vehicles and fuel storage tanks.
The married couple, both 60, who live just outside Pittsburgh in Collier Township, said “all the rhetoric about J.D. Vance and Donald Trump being weird” frustrates them.
“I was so impressed with him that if he were president I would be fine with it. I watched him in the debate. He blew me away,” Tony said. “I wasn’t real excited when Trump chose him. I thought he could have taken Nikki Haley and done something to bridge the female gap that he suffers with. But this guy’s as impressive as it comes.”
The couple — simply wearing red, no campaign gear — described themselves as “not crazy Trumpers.” They’re voting for the former president based on concerns over border security, fentanyl overdose deaths and inflation.
“We’ve seen so many people that we know, our friends’ kids that have passed away, we have family members that have passed away from fentanyl, and I think that’s a huge issue,” Karri said.
The drug overdose epidemic, driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, has afflicted the U.S. for years. Overdose deaths decreased in 2023 for the first time since 2018.
Tony added that concern about fentanyl overdose deaths “goes along with the border.” Chemicals to make illicit fentanyl follow the path from China to Mexico, where they are processed into the drug and then smuggled over the U.S. southern border.
“And the single biggest issue for me is keeping the border secure. I think there was a total lack of focus from this current administration with the border,” Tony said.
Choking up with emotion, Tony added “We want our grandkids to have what we had growing up.”
“We didn’t have all of this crazy rhetoric, with all the hatred back and forth, and inflationary cost and the border. We grew up in a great country, and I believe it’s gonna be a great country. I worry about our grandkids. We’re 60 years old. We’re not going to be here forever.”
‘All the good Republicans are gone’
Robin Kemling was headed into the Harris rally in Erie when she told States Newsroom she’s voting for the vice president to protect abortion access, and because she’s tired of “mean” rhetoric from Trump and his supporters.
“It’s us who care, I feel especially now, against those that just feel that they have a right to be oppressing. They’re mean. They’re mean-spirited people,” Kemling, 60, said.
“I’ve driven by a house since 2020, it has a huge sign up — It says ‘F,’ then has an American flag before ‘K,’ then ‘Biden.’ I mean, our kids ride them school buses by it,” she said.
“All the good Republicans are gone.”
She and her husband Greg Kemling, 68, who accompanied her to the rally, live in the Butler area. Greg criticized Trump as “just no good.”
“He’s useless, a liar, and lies about everything,” said Greg, a retired union worker at Hammermill Paper in Erie.
‘God knows he’s the best’
Debbie Cragle, 57, of Johnstown, said she believes a higher power has chosen Trump to lead the U.S.
“He’s going to be our president,” said Cragle, who attended Vance’s rally.
“What happened to Trump in Butler, thank God he survived. But it happened for a reason because God knows he’s the best man for the job, and he’s going to put him in office.” A gunman attempted to assassinate Trump on July 13 at a rally in Butler.
Cragle said she’s voting for Trump based on border policy, the economy and health care for veterans “first and foremost, because they are the heart of this country, and they are why we’re here.”
“We need to get Kamala out of office. We need to secure our borders, lower our taxes, lower inflation. We need to get this country back on the track that it was four years ago. And I believe that Donald Trump will definitely do it. He is the best man for the job,” she said.
Cragle said she’s “thinking about” voting by mail but prefers to vote in person because she believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Though Trump regularly repeats that he won the 2020 presidential election over Biden, there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Early voting has been underway in Pennsylvania for several weeks. The commonwealth’s 67 counties began distributing mail-in ballots after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court finalized which candidates could appear on the ballot.
‘No business in the bedrooms’
Theresa Zoky and Cindy Hoover were also waiting in a long line to enter the Harris rally on Oct. 14.
The two Benedictine Sisters of Erie said they’re voting for Harris for numerous reasons — protecting U.S. democracy, privacy rights and concern over Trump’s age.
“She will honor the Constitution. That’s basically what my whole thing is, because our government needs somebody that will know what the Constitution is about and follow it,” 82-year-old Zoky said, adding that Trump “breeds negativity.”
“He’s just not fit for office, simple as that.”
Hoover said she believes Harris “will take us forward instead of taking us backwards.”
“She will spread hope for our country, for our world, and I think she is very supportive of women, especially women to have a right to their own bodies. Men have no business, the government has no business in the bedrooms. It is a family issue,” Hoover said.
“I don’t believe Trump can run this country,” she continued. “I think he’s an old man. He’s ready to retire. If you talk about Biden being old, he’s worse.”
Jan. 6 ‘means nothing’
Walking out of Vance’s rally Saturday, Missy Brodt told States Newsroom that she’s over what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol.
The rioters injured about 140 police officers and delayed by several hours the certification of the 2020 presidential victory for President Joe Biden. More than 1,500 defendants have been charged with crimes associated with the attack.
“The Democrats, they just keep bringing up the same stuff over and over again with January 6th. It means nothing. You know what, it happened. As a human you’re allowed to protest. Okay, some things went out of the way, but leave it alone,” Brodt said.
“The Democrats still haven’t told me what they’re gonna do when they get in the office, all I hear is all joy and happy, happy,” Brodt said.
When asked by States Newsroom during his Johnstown rally if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power no matter who wins in November, Vance said, “Look, this is very simple. Yes, there was a riot at the Capitol on January 6, but there was still a peaceful transfer of power in this country, and that is always going to happen.”
Ed Sedei, a 56-year-old Trump voter in Johnstown, criticized the multiple journalists, including States Newsroom’s, who asked Vance questions about the 2020 election.
“They had some valuable time to ask some good questions today, but they asked the same old tired questions about if you think the election was rigged and whatnot,” said Sedei, who wore a t-shirt bearing the words “F- -k Harris & Walz.”
Traveling to Pennsylvania to see Harris
Renetta Johnson, 63, and her 88-year-old mother, Dorothy, will not be able to sway the Pennsylvania contest for Harris. The pair viewed themselves as lucky to live close enough to a swing state to see the vice president in person. They drove the nearly two hours from Buffalo, New York, to the Harris event in Erie.
Harris has been campaigning pretty much exclusively in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“(My mother) was born in 1936 in Gadsden, Alabama, and so in her lifetime she’s seen the colored-only fountains, the white-only fountains. She’s seen someone hanging from a tree. And to come from that in her lifetime to come see the first woman vice president, and first woman vice president of color,” said Johnson, a Desert Storm veteran.
“So I brought her for all that she’s done, and to remind people that, you know, in her lifetime, those terrible things happened. And now look where we are today.”
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Pennsylvania
From Chocolate Avenue to the World Cup, how Hershey, Pennsylvania, shaped Christian Pulisic
HERSHEY, Pa. (AP) — Hershey may be known as the “Sweetest Place on Earth,” thanks to its chocolate-drenched origins, but the Pennsylvania community is also home to Christian Pulisic — the most accomplished and famous player on a U.S. national team that’s dreaming big as it co-hosts the World Cup.
“Hershey to me is everything — it’s where my family is from, it’s where I grew up,” Pulisic recently said on his Instagram account as he promoted limited-edition Pulisic’s Milk Chocolate Bars by the Hershey Company that feature custom wrappers with his signature. “It’s where I learned how to play. It’s just home.”
A billboard featuring U.S. soccer player Christian Pulisic is pictured on the side of the Hotel Figueroa, Monday, June 29, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Pulisic grew up in this south-central Pennsylvania community surrounded by farms and rolling countryside, where even the streetlights along Chocolate Avenue are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses. The community was founded in 1903 by Milton S. Hershey, the American businessman and philanthropist who also built homes for workers, a hotel and a theme park that Pulisic often visited with family.
More than 120 years later, the Hershey Company is still the economic engine of Chocolatetown, USA. But the “Man Behind the Chocolate Bar” now shares the hometown hero honor with the soccer player nicknamed “Captain America.”
Pulisic inspires young soccer players in Hershey
Pulisic’s hometown roots run deep, and during the World Cup, his community has rallied around him as the U.S. plays some of its most exciting soccer ever.
“It’s pretty amazing that he came from Hershey and played for my club,” said Hershey High School rising freshman Cecelia Stefanelli who, on a recent afternoon, kicked a ball to score a goal on her father at a field where Pulisic played.
The Americans will attempt to win their first World Cup elimination game in 24 years on Wednesday evening, when they face Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round of 32 in Santa Clara, California. They should have a healthy Pulisic after the star missed the second group-stage game with a calf injury and played only 33 minutes as a sub in the final group match against Turkey.
“I’d love if USA won the World Cup; it’d make me happy,” said Stefanelli, a center back who also plays for the Pennsylvania Classics soccer club. Pulisic often credits the structure and coaches at PA Classics, where he played for eight years, with helping develop his skills. In 2021, he returned to the club for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new fields that he financed and helped design. It’s now known as the Pulisic Stomping Grounds.
The club is located in Lancaster County, surrounded by chicken and dairy farms that give off a pungent odor of fermenting feed and manure.
On a recent day, Liam Gustafson and Moussa Oumarou juggled a soccer ball and passed it back and forth as they warmed up for training in front of a huge collage of photos of Pulisic that trace from his childhood training to starring for the U.S. at the World Cup.
“It’s really special to see someone from around here, where we live, playing in the World Cup,” said Gustafson, a 17-year-old forward who dreams of playing pro soccer and calls Pulisic his role model. “It’s really inspiring to see someone who paved the way, so that we can do that someday.”
Pulisic’s path to USMNT stardom ran through Hershey
The road to soccer was paved early as Pulisic followed in the footsteps of his parents. He was born in Hershey on Sept. 18, 1998, to Kelley and Mark Pulisic, both former collegiate soccer players at George Mason University. His father went on to play pro indoor soccer for the Harrisburg Heat. The family moved to England for a year while Pulisic’s mother completed a Fulbright Program teacher exchange and their 7-year-old rising star played for the Brackley Town youth team.
“Mark and Kelley could write a playbook on how to raise a humble, smart, kind superstar, while maintaining family relationships,” said Tara Seymour, a family friend and retired health and physical education teacher at Hershey Middle School. She met the family at a soccer camp and became close friends with Pulisic’s mother.
“She just quietly said to me one time, ‘We have never seen anything like this.’ This is a kid who could juggle the soccer ball hundreds of times when he was in elementary school,” Seymour said. Pulisic, she said, would practice in his backyard for hours, trying to emulate the moves of pros he saw on TV.
“He has an intensity that couldn’t be taught,” she recalled. “I think he had the opportunity to go pro earlier or go to Europe earlier and they held back just to make sure emotionally and maturity-wise he was ready.”
When the family returned to Hershey, Pulisic joined PA Classics at the age of 10. The club’s president and co-founder Doug Harris said Pulisic’s talent allowed him to play with older age groups, and he was often the smallest player on the field.
“I think if you were to pull kids in the world who want to achieve the level of Christian Pulisic, you’d have millions that would step up, raise their hand. They’re all gifted; they all can play,” Harris said. “But there’s something fundamental about what Christian has been able to do and I’d credit Mark and Kelley Pulisic with a lot of that.”
Looking forward to the future of American soccer
The Americans’ only World Cup knockout win came on June 17, 2002, when they defeated Mexico 2-0 in the round of 16 in South Korea. Pulisic has said the team’s approach won’t change in this round and the mood remains light despite the high stakes.
“It’s just special to be here,” he said. “You just don’t want it to end.”
Pennsylvania Classic coaches, Brittney Jakobson, left, and Nick Jakobson, right, look at a banner of U.S. national team soccer player Christian Pulisic with their children, Declan Jakobson, who wears an Argentina jersey, and Camden Jakobson, wearing a Portugal jersey, at the club were Pulisic honed his skills in Manheim, Pa., on Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)
Ahead of the game against Bosnia-Herzegovina, PA Classics coaches Brittney Jakobson and Nick Jakobson took their children, Declan and Camden, to kick a ball at Pulisic’s former club. The Americans, they said, have a shot at winning the tournament. But their legacy goes beyond the trophy.
“Their goal is to inspire a generation and it’s really fun to see that happening in real time … to hear people going out and watching the games, to see people buying the jerseys,” Brittney Jakobson said.
“Pulisic, obviously, in the short term is a great kind of figure to follow,” said Nick Jakobson. “But he does very much encourage that it’s not just about him. It’s not about just these four years. It’s about the next eight, 12, 16. It’s forward-thinking, and they’re laying a good foundation for what we can build on.”
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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here
Generic police lights (FOX 9)
A 10-year-old boy who allegedly robbed a Dollar Tree store in Pennsylvania is also accused of stabbing multiple times one of the employees trying to detain him.
Big picture view:
The Swatara Township Police Department reported that its officers were called around 5 p.m. on Monday to the discount store in Harrisburg where they found the boy being held by store employees.
Timeline:
After speaking with witnesses, officers determined that the grade-school-age child went into the store holding a fixed-blade knife, threatened an employee, and told her to give him all the money.
Customs officers use Heimlich maneuver to save choking toddler
The employee’s co-workers jumped in to help her. As they struggled to subdue the boy, he stabbed one of them multiple times, the police department reported. Its statement did not indicate how badly that employee was injured, only saying that medical treatment was needed.
Dig deeper:
The suspect was taken by officers to a detention facility where he was booked on counts of robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and possessing an instrument of a crime.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from Swatara Township Police Department. This story was reported from Orlando.
PA Gov. Shapiro wants $4.7 billion from reserves to balance budget
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s rainy day-fund request to balance his 2026-27 budget proposal would be the largest in state history.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives added two session days to its calendar this week while the Senate took off for an early holiday as another state budget will not be finalized on time.
House Speaker Joanna McClinton added voting sessions for 11 a.m. July 1 and 9:30 a.m. July 2. Senate Republicans voted to return at the call of President Pro Tempore Judy Ward, frustrating some Democrats.
Changes to the calendar throughout the year are routine, McClinton’s press secretary, Nicole Reigelman, told USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania. “Nothing specific led to it,” she said.
A late budget would mark the fifth time in as many years elected state officials missed the statutorily mandated June 30 deadline. Last year, it was not signed until Nov. 12.
“We’re walking out the door while the House is in session the next two days and the governor is in place to work with us here to get this done,” Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat from Philadelphia, said on the Senate floor before voting against the recess that Republicans passed.
The Senate is not scheduled to return to session until Sept. 28. After July 2, the House’s next scheduled return is also Sept. 28. Both chambers could be called back at any time.
“I am highly confident we are well on track to deliver a responsible budget that will recognize our unique status as a divided government and deliver a responsible product to the people of Pennsylvania with no negative impacts,” Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican who represents Indiana County, said on the Senate floor. “There’s no reason we can’t conclude our work early next week.”
Minority Leader Jay Costa, a Democrat from Allegheny County, disagreed and said returning July 5 would be inappropriate.
“Some may characterize talks as hopeful and seem to be coming together,” Costa said from the floor. “Based on my recent conversations, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
But a budget could be getting close, according to one Republican state representative who requested anonymity. “There’s going to be very little policy in the budget,” the representative told USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania. “I take it to mean that there aren’t going to be major policy changes and negotiations will center around dollars and cents.”
The House passed a $53.3 billion budget plan in April with a bipartisan vote, but the Republican-controlled Senate has not acted on it. It would cost roughly 5.6% more than the state spent in the fiscal year that ends June 30.
“The Senate hasn’t passed a budget,” Reigelman said. “We’re proud that we got them something more than two months ago.”
That budget was performative, according to Republican Senate Majority Caucus Chair Kristin Phillips-Hill, who represents York County.
“It was really cute,” Phillips-Hill told USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania. “There is not enough money from taxpayers to pay for the budget they sent us. To me, that’s completely unacceptable.”
Republican legislators have opposed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposal to use $4.7 billion of rainy day funds to balance the budget. GOP leaders in the House and Senate have said excessive spending could downgrade the state’s credit rating and lead to future tax increases.
Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office projects a worsening deficit for the state that could reach $8.3 billion in three years.
Pittman said in an interview earlier in June that this budget has a “much different feel” since it lacks a big issue hanging over lawmakers the way a debate over mass transit funding lingered in 2025.
“We have an opportunity to pay our bills and reduce the deficit we’re facing and hopefully not dip into reserves any more than is absolutely necessary,” Pittman said June 26 in an interview on Indiana County radio station WCCS 101.1FM.
Proposals in the budget include new revenue from legalizing recreational marijuana and skill games. The state Legislature has until mid-October to decide if Pennsylvania will allow skill games after the state Supreme Court ruled on June 15 that they are illegal.
“The question is, how, given the Supreme Court ruling where they said these are slot machines, how do you delineate that taxation approach?” Pittman asked during his interview. “If we don’t do anything, these machines are gone. Period.”
State oversight for skill games would include licensing and regulations through the state’s Gaming Control Board. Slot machines in a casino are taxed at 52%, Pittman said.
The Independent Fiscal Office maintains that Shapiro’s revenue estimates for recreational marijuana and skill games exceed their own estimates by $4.4 billion over the next three fiscal years.
Mark Walters is the USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania statehouse reporter. Reach him atmwalters@usatodayco.com.
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