Pennsylvania
Here’s Why Pennsylvania Might Be The Most Important Prize In The 2024 Election
Topline
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are nearly tied in Pennsylvania, according to two new polls this week in the battleground state, where a win for either candidate could pave the way to the White House.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris reacts as Former President and … [+]
Key Facts
Harris leads by 0.6 points in Pennsylvania, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average—a recent Morning Consult poll found her up by three points, 49% to 46%, and a September CBS/YouGov poll showed Harris and Trump even, both at 50%.
Pennsylvania has more electoral votes, 19, than any other battleground, and Pennsylvanians routinely pick winners, voting for 10 of the last 12 White House winners—the candidate who has won Pennsylvania has also won Michigan and Wisconsin (the three states together are known as the “blue wall”) in the past eight elections.
Pennsylvania has a 35% chance of tipping the election, far more than any other battleground state, according to political analyst Nate Silver’s election forecasting model that found Harris has a 91% of winning the election if she wins Pennsylvania, while Trump has a 96% chance of winning.
Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since the 1980s in the 2016 election, and Biden, who is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, reversed the trend in 2020, with the state to putting him over the 270-vote threshold needed to win the Electoral College when the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for Biden four days after the election.
Underscoring Pennsylvania’s weight in the 2024 election, ABC News chose to host the first presidential debate between Trump and Harris there, on Tuesday in Philadelphia; Pennsylvania is also significant to Trump personally, as he was shot there while speaking at a rally near Butler on July 14.
Pennsylvania has a large share of white, working class voters, with nearly 75% of the population identifying as non-Hispanic white—a demographic Trump typically performs well with, though Harris has made inroads with white voters compared to Biden’s performance in 2020, trailing Trump by only three points nationally, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, after Trump won the demographic by 12 points in 2020.
Surprising Fact
No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania since 1948. If Harris wins Pennsylvania, and the trend of also winning Wisconsin and Michigan holds, she’s all but certain to win the White House.
Big Number
82%. That’s the share of registered voters in Pennsylvania who said the economy is a major factor in their 2024 vote, followed by inflation at 78% and the state of democracy at 70%, according to the CBS/YouGov survey. The results are on par with the national electorate, according to a recent Pew Research survey of registered voters that found 81% of registered voters rate the economy as “very important” in the election.
Chief Critic
Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Harris over her previous endorsement of a fracking ban—Pennsylvania is the country’s second-largest natural gas producer. “Fracking? She’s been against it for 12 years,” Trump said during Tuesday’s debate in Philadelphia. Harris, who said during a 2019 CNN climate town hall while she was running for president “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” has said she’s since changed her stance. During Tuesday’s debate, she said she made “very clear” in 2020 that she’s against a fracking ban, presumably referring to her vice presidential debate with Mike Pence, and noted the Inflation Reduction Act opened new gas leases—reiterating a stance she took in a CNN interview last month. Harris didn’t actually say she changed her own position on the issue during the 2020 debate—instead she said then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden “will not end fracking.”
Tangent
Pennsylvania has a divided state legislature. The state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, is widely popular in the state. Democrats also control the House, but Republicans hold the majority in the Senate.
Key Background
Harris leads Trump in five of seven battleground states, while Trump is ahead in Arizona and Georgia, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages that show margins of less than three points in all seven battleground states (Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin). If Trump maintains his leads in Arizona and Georgia, and wins North Carolina, as he’s expected to, he would need just one of the “Blue Wall” states to win the White House.
Further Reading
Election 2024 Swing State Polls: Harris Leading Trump Narrowly In Michigan And Wisconsin—But Tied In Pennsylvania (Forbes)
How Kamala Harris’ Views On Fracking Have Changed—After Backtracking On Ban (Forbes)
Trump Vs. Harris 2024 Polls: Harris Up By 1 Point—As Her Lead Plateaus Before Debate (Forbes)
Designed by Gensler and HDR, in association with Luis Vidal + Architects, the transformed Pittsburgh International Airport Terminal aims to create a more tranquil passenger experience while celebrating Western Pennsylvania’s identity. Completed in November, it is entirely powered by its own microgrid that uses natural gas and solar energy. A skybridge connects the new headhouse—which con- solidates all major airport operations into a single structure—to a modernized terminal concourse. The roof, which consists of staggered peaks that frame clere- story windows, evokes the Allegheny Mountains, while branching columns recall trees. Augmenting the many nods to the region, the team included four verdant terraces fea- turing native plants, which are sustained by rainwater-harvesting systems.
Counties that used a redesigned envelope for their provisional ballots in 2025 saw rejection rates drop by 11.3% when compared to last year, according to Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt.
The new look adopted by 85% of counties indicates which fields are for voters and which are for election workers, and highlights where voters must sign. The drop from 4.96% to 4.4% doesn’t include the nine counties that didn’t use the new design or Chester County, which had a printing error in November that omitted third-party and independent voters from pollbooks.
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The 11.3% figure is adjusted for voter turnout. More than 7 million Pennsylvanians voted in 2024 – which was a presidential election year – compared to 3.6 million in the 2025 off-year election.
“Our goal remains ensuring every registered voter in our Commonwealth can cast their vote and have it counted in every election,” Schmidt said in a release. “As with the changes to mail ballot materials two years ago, these improvements resulted in more registered voters being able to make their voices heard in November’s election.”
Two years ago, the state conducted a voter education initiative and required counties to preprint the full year of mail ballot return envelopes. Mail ballot instructions and online application materials were also redesigned.
Five counties — Philadelphia, Berks, Butler, Mercer and Greene — worked with the state to craft the new envelopes to be more user friendly for both voters and poll workers.
“The purpose in leading the redesign effort was to reduce errors and have more votes counted, which is exactly what we achieved,” said Omar Sabir, the chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners. “An 11% decrease in ballot rejections shows the real impact that thoughtful design can have on protecting voting rights across Pennsylvania.”
The nine counties opting out of the new design were: Bedford, Bradford, Crawford, Franklin, Huntingdon, Lackawanna, Lycoming, Monroe and Wyoming.
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.
Pennsylvania
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