Harris vs Trump: Philadelphia debate to spotlight Pennsylvania's influence in 2024 presidential race

When Donald Trump and Kamala Harris face off on Tuesday night in Philadelphia, they will be aware that Pennsylvania holds the key to their presidential hopes. The state, known for its swing status has played a decisive role in the past two elections, with victory margins of just tens of thousands of votes and this year’s polls indicate another close contest in November.

But this debate goes beyond mere appearances. For Harris, 60, who has experienced a sudden surge in popularity after replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, it represents an opportunity to solidify those gains with a strong showing onstage. Her rise in the polls has added momentum to her campaign, and Tuesday’s debate could be a pivotal moment in converting that momentum into electoral success.

On the other side, Trump, now 78 and the oldest candidate in the race, will likely use the debate to reinforce his campaign strategy, which has largely focused on attacking Harris, the Biden administration, and the Democratic Party. His rhetoric has been marked by pointed criticism, and he’ll aim to strengthen his base with more of the same.

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A loss in the state will make it difficult to make up the electoral votes elsewhere to win the presidency. Trump and Harris have been frequent visitors to the state in recent weeks. Trump was notably in Butler County on July 14, where he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt during his speech.

As the debate nears, all eyes will be on Pennsylvania, as its outcome could play a crucial role in determining the next occupant of the White House.

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The stakes may be especially high for Harris: No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania since 1948.

“They say that ‘If you win Pennsylvania, you’re going to win the whole thing,’” Trump told a crowd in Wilkes-Barre’s Mohegan Arena in August.

Republicans are looking to blunt Trump’s unpopularity in Pennsylvania’s growing and increasingly liberal suburbs by criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the economy. They hope to counter the Democrats’ massive advantage in early voting by encouraging their base to vote by mail.

Harris is looking to reassemble the coalition behind Biden’s winning campaign, including college students, Black voters and women animated by protecting abortion rights.

Democrats also say it will be critical for Harris to win big in Philadelphia — the state’s largest city, where Black residents are the largest group by race — and its suburbs, while paring Trump’s large margins among white voters across wide swaths of rural and small-town Pennsylvania.

The debate is set for the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The city is a Democratic stronghold where Trump in 2020 notoriously said “ bad things happen,” one of his baseless broadsides suggesting that Democrats could only win Pennsylvania by cheating.

Biden flipped Pennsylvania in 2020 not just by winning big in Philadelphia, but by running up bigger margins in the heavily populated suburbs around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. He also got a boost in northeastern Pennsylvania in the counties around Scranton, where he grew up.

Ed Rendell, a former two-term Democratic governor who was hugely popular in Philadelphia and its suburbs, says Harris can do better than Biden in the suburbs.

“There’s plenty of votes to get, a Democrat can get a greater margin in those counties,” Rendell said.

Lawrence Tabas, chair of Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, said Trump can make gains there, too. The GOP’s polling and outreach shows that the effect of inflation on the economy is a priority for those suburbanites, he said, and that the issue works in the party’s favor.

“A lot of people are really now starting to say, ‘Look, personalities aside, they are what they are, but we really need the American economy to become strong again,’” Tabas said.

Rendell dismisses that claim. He said Trump is veering off script and saying bizarre things that will ensure he gets a smaller share of independents and Republicans in the suburbs than he did in 2020.

“He’s gotten so weird that he’ll lose a lot of votes,” Rendell said.

Harris has championed various steps to fight inflation, including capping the cost of prescription drugs, helping families afford child care, lowering the cost of groceries and offering incentives to encourage home ownership.

Pennsylvania’s relatively stagnant economy usually lags the national economy, but its unemployment rate in July was nearly a full percentage point lower. The state’s private sector wage growth, however, has slightly lagged behind the nation’s since Biden took office in 2021, according to federal data.

Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping the enthusiasm since Biden withdrew from the race and Harris stepped in will carry through Election Day in November.

For one, they hope she will do better with women and Black voters, as the first female presidential nominee of Black heritage. Rendell said he is more optimistic about Harris’ chances to win Pennsylvania than he was with Biden in the race.

”I think we’re the favorite now,” Rendell said.

For Harris, the period after the debate in Philadelphia marks the start of the aggressive sprint toward the end of what has been a dramatic race.

Meanwhile, Harris is also planning a four-day campaign trip through major swing states after the Democrat’s debate Tuesday with Republican Donald Trump.

Her “New Way Forward” tour will include a new television spot, rallies, canvassing events and programs designed to target important voting groups, the campaign said Sunday, adding that the tour will culminate at the start of Hispanic Heritage Month on Sept. 15.

In a tight race against the former president, the Harris campaign sees itself as having the room to persuade voters before focusing more intently on turnout with the beginning of early voting before the Nov. 5 election. Trump has also stepped up his outreach with rallies and interviews in seemingly friendly forums.

“Our campaign will take the vice president’s message directly to the voters wherever they are -– on the airwaves, on the doors, and online," said Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director. “With so much at stake in this election, we are blitzing the battlegrounds and leaving it all out on the field.”

Trump, who campaigned Saturday in Wisconsin, posted on social media that “when” he wins, anyone who he deems as having been “involved in unscrupulous behavior” tied to the election “will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

After the debate, political leaders on Wednesday are set to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Harris’ campaign will start running a new television ad that will speak to her plans for middle-class tax cuts, limiting prescription drug prices and addressing the housing shortage. The ads are part of a broader $370 million media investment and will be tailored state by state for voters in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nebraska.

With inputs from agencies.