US presidential election: Is winning Pennsylvania the key to the White House?

In the closing days of the campaign for the US presidential election, all eyes are on Pennsylvania.

Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump have made winning the swing state the focus of their campaigns.

Pennsylvania, you might recall, is where Trump had his McDonalds photo op and where he was nearly assassinated (the first time).

Trump ally and billionaire Elon Musk has announced a $1 million-a-day sweepstakes in the swing state to entice voters.

Harris, meanwhile, announced her running mate Tim Walz in Pennsylvania.

Both candidates repeatedly visited the state, including on Monday in the final hours of the campaign.

But why does the Keystone state hold such importance in the 2024 polls?

Let’s take a closer look:

EVs up for grabs

First, Pennsylvania has 19 Electoral Votes.

Of all seven swing states, it has the single most EVs up for grabs.

By comparison, Arizona has 11 EVs, Michigan 15 EVs, Georgia and North Carolina have  16 EVs each, Nevada has 6 EVs and Wisconsin 10 EVs.

Remember, to win the US presidential election, a candidate must hit the magic mark of 270s EVs out of the available 538 EVs.

Pennsylvania thus potentially holds the keys to the White House.

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“It’s the granddaddy of all the swing states,” ex-congressman Patrick Murphy, who represented north-eastern Pennsylvania as a Democrat told BBC.

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History of picking winner

Pennsylvania also has a recent history of picking the winner of the US election.

Since 2008, every candidate who has won Pennsylvania has become president.

Obama took the state in that election en route to becoming the first Black Commander-in-Chief, and won it again in 2012 on his way to re-election.

In 2016, Trump carried Pennsylvania in a shock upset over Hillary Clinton and became president.

Then, in 2020 Biden beat Trump by a margin of 40,000 votes and ascended to the Oval Office.

BBC quoted election analyst Nate Silver as saying that the candidate that takes Pennsylvania has over a 90 per cent shot at winning the presidential election.

America in a nutshell

Unlike many other states, Pennsylvania also is a microcosm of America.

Though it remains a white majority state, it is home to a growing number of blacks and Hispanics.

African-Americans, who comprise 13 per cent of the US population, make up 12 per cent of Pennsylvania.

Some argue this bodes well for Trump.

“We’ve seen nationally that Trump has made some real inroads with African American men,” Farah Jimenez, a conservative education activist told BBC. “They’re here in Philadelphia, and if you can convince them that he speaks more clearly to the things that concern them, it can at least start to provide a base for Republicans in Philadelphia.”

“We feel confident about things,” a Trump campaign official told NBC News. “We also have been through 2022 and certainly 2020, so it’s not lost on us … there’s still a very real and significant chance we could lose this.”

“I’m just not used to us being ahead in any poll, in any situation ever, and we are now,” the official added. “Talk to some of the older guys here, and they get a lot of 2016 vibes.”

But others dismiss such talk.

NPR quoted Joe Hill, a board member of Black Leadership Pennsylvania, as saying tha t Harris’ “strong appeal" is “motivating a lot of women in Philadelphia and Pittsburg".

The state also is home to 580,000 eligible Latino voters, as per News18.

This fact gains importance in the aftermath of Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City where an insult comic trashing Latinos left the community outraged.

Though the polls in the state show Harris and Trump tied, some think it won’t be close in the end.

Representative Madeleine Dean, who was one of the House managers in Trump’s second impeachment case, told NBC News, “My prediction is that it’s very close, and then it’s not.”

“I believe she [Harris] will decisively win in Pennsylvania. The majority of Americans and the majority of Pennsylvanians will reject the darkness and corruption of Donald Trump.”

Will we get a quick result?

Unfortunately, we may not know who wins Pennsylvania for days.

This is because Pennsylvania, like in 2020, is not allowing workers to count mail-in and provisional ballots until Election Day.

Though mail-in voting will reach nowhere close to the heights it did in 2020 when 2.6 million mail-in ballots were sent, it still takes time to process them.

As per News18, the state thus far has recorded 217,000 mail-in ballots as well as 27,000 military and overseas voter ballots.

Under state law, these cannot be processed until election night.

Which is why the final result may take time.

Craig Snyder, an ex- Republican Senate staffer running Pennsylvania’s “Haley Voters for Harris” effort, told BBC, “I can’t imagine that it’s not going to take several days after to get a count.”

“And if the count is very close, we’re going to get into lawsuits and recounts and all the rest of it. So everybody needs to buckle up.”

With inputs from agencies

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