How Trump won big in Pennsylvania

As a result, Harris fell short and ended with nearly a 2% gap between her and Trump in Pennsylvania.

Trump performed better in Pennsylvania this election than in 2020 among younger voters, white men, Black men and Latin Americans. Black women voted a few points higher for Harris and, interestingly enough, a larger share of older voters also voted for Harris than in 2020.

Results from individual voting precincts help to map some of this out. For example, Harris received fewer votes in many precincts in neighborhoods like Kingessing and North Philly while Trump won more. That’s also the case in Berks County, which has a large Puerto Rican population, particularly in Hispanic-majority Reading.

The blame and infighting has already begun among Democrats but the reality is that there weren’t enough additional doors to knock in Philly to cover Harris’ deficit. The Harris campaign regularly touted their state campaign structure and ground game, regularly boasting about their 50 satellite offices. The campaign hired hundreds of staffers and recruited thousands of local volunteers. For months, they held daily events — often several in the same day — with prominent surrogates, including Republicans for Harris, and were in regular contact with local reporters to spread their message.

Harris herself appeared in Philadelphia some 15 times to motivate her base and made several visits to other parts of the state.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign’s apparatus was much slower to launch and appeared to lack a consistent ground game. Part of that was likely a simple lack of resources. The Harris campaign was flush with cash, having inherited the Biden campaign’s account and managed to raise more than $200 million after she was elevated to the top of the ticket.

In the end, Harris raised and spent more $1 billion, 2.5 times that of the Trump campaign. Outside PAC spending helped reduce that gap but, ultimately, that imbalance meant few staff on the ground.

“They just didn’t have the resources,” Dr. Tim Blessing, a professor at Alvernia University in Reading, said of the Trump campaign. “And frankly — and I’m trying to be tactful about this — I don’t know that the Trump campaign was overly gifted with skilled volunteers.”

Pettigrew says that there is evidence that the Harris campaign’s efforts did make an impact. The shift toward Trump was much higher in non-swing states — even as high as 6% in deep blue California — than in swing states where they spent all their resources.

“That is suggestive that the ground game was kind of effective and that had it not been as effective then we may have seen an even more pronounced shift in the favor of Trump,” he said. “So maybe they did all that they possibly could, and they just were fighting such an uphill battle.”