Hello, Pennsylvania! Why Harris and Trump can’t get enough of the Keystone State

Pennsylvania is easy for the candidates to get to

Urban points out there is also a practical reason both campaigns are spending so much time in Pennsylvania. It’s close to home for Trump — who spends his summers in New Jersey — and for Harris, who lives at the vice president’s residence in Washington, D.C.

“Arizona and Nevada, you’ve got to go all the way across America,” said Urban. “It’s a long flight. To go to Pennsylvania, both for Harris and for Trump, it’s a 20-minute flight.”

Trump is working to drive up turnout among the state’s white working-class voters, outside of the major cities, aiming to win the same way he did in 2016 – though he is also hoping to make gains with Black and Latino men.

The Harris campaign is trying to boost turnout in the cities and suburbs, but also aims to cut into Trump’s margins in more rural parts of Pennsylvania. The stops in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre are part of that strategy.

“We are going into places where Democrats haven’t gone before,” said Quentin Fulks, Harris’ deputy campaign manager.

In August, Harris did bus tours of both Western Pennsylvania and the southeastern part of Georgia, in and around Savannah. That’s a city that hasn’t seen a general election candidate visit since the 1990s.

“When you are talking about some of these states that are being decided by 12,000 votes, it doesn’t matter if those votes come from Atlanta, or it doesn’t matter if those votes come from Savannah or Augusta or somewhere more rural like Schley County, my home town,” said Fulks.

According to AdImpact numbers, the Trump team has reserved nearly $30 million in ads in Georgia, while Harris and her allies plan to spend more than $40 million. It’s a sign they both see the state as winnable.

North Carolina is another state getting a lot of candidate facetime, even though Obama was the last Democratic nominee to win there, back in 2008.

Trump has been there three times since Harris got into the race. Harris made her second visit there as a presidential candidate on Thursday, but had held public events in the states six other times this when she was still President Biden’s running mate.

Polls show North Carolina is close, with an advantage to Trump. But he probably wouldn’t be spending all the time he is in North Carolina, if his campaign was sure they had it in the bag.

NPR’s Gus Contreras, Kai McNamee, Clayton Kincaide and Juweek Adolphe contributed to this story.