Trump, Harris to fight for Pennsylvania votes with rally, bus tour
Updates with Harris ad plan, Trump campaign comment in paragraphs 11-13
By Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax
WILKES-BARRE, Pennsylvania, Aug 17 (Reuters) -Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris will hold dueling campaign events this weekend in Pennsylvania, the political battleground that could be the most critical state in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Trump, the former president, will hold a rally on Saturdayin Wilkes-Barre in the northeastern part of the state. Vice President Harris will conduct a bus tour of western Pennsylvania starting in Pittsburgh on Sunday, ahead of the kickoff of the Democratic National Convention on Monday in Chicago.
Pennsylvania was one of three Rust Belt states, along with Wisconsin and Michigan, that helped power Trump's upset victory in the 2016 election. President Joe Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, flipped the trio back to the Democratsin 2020.
The three states are true bellwethers - the only U.S. states to have voted for the eventual winner of the presidential race in every cycle since 2008.
With 19 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to secure the White House, compared with 15 in Michigan and 10 in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania may be the biggest prize in this year's election.
A statistical model created by Nate Silver, an election forecaster, estimates that Pennsylvania is more than twice as likely as any other to be the "tipping point" state - the one whose electoral votes push either Harris or Trump over the top.
Harris' entry into the race after Biden ended his reelection bid last month has upended the contest, erasing the lead Trump built during the final weeks of Biden's shaky campaign. Harris is leading Trump by more than two percentage points in Pennsylvania, according to the poll tracking website FiveThirtyEight.
BLANKETING AIRWAVES WITH ADS
Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by about 44,000 votes, a margin of less than one percentage point, while Biden prevailed by just over 80,000 votes in 2020, a 1.2% margin.
Both campaigns have made the state a top priority, blanketing the airwaves with advertisements. Of the more than $110 million spent on advertising in seven battleground statessince Biden dropped out in late July, roughly $42 million was spent in Pennsylvania, more than twice any other state, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing data from the tracking site AdImpact.
Democratic and Republican groups have already reserved $114 million in ad time in Pennsylvania from late August through the election, more than twice as much as the $55 million reserved in Arizona, the next highest total, according to AdImpact.
The Harris campaign said on Saturday it planned to spend at least $370 million on digital and television ads nationwide betweenthe Labor Day holiday on Sept. 2 and Election Day.
The battleground states - seen as critical for winning the election - also include Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Georgia.
New polls published on Saturday by the New York Timesfound Harris leading Trump among likely voters in Arizona, 50% to 45%, and in North Carolina, 49% to 47%, and narrowing the former president's leads in Nevada, 47% to 49%, and in Georgia, 46% to 50%. A pollster from the Trump campaign said the poll results underestimated the Republican candidate's support.
Trump and Harris have visited Pennsylvania morethan half a dozen times each this year. Trump was wounded during an assassination attempt at his rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
He has said he will return to Butler in October, and also announced he will give remarks on the economy at a campaign event in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday. Trump's running mate, U.S. SenatorJD Vance, will deliver remarks in Philadelphia that day as well.
Trump's trip on Saturday toWilkes-Barre in Luzerne County is aimed at solidifying support among the white, non-college-educated voters who lifted him to victory in 2016. The blue-collar county voted Democratic for decades before swinging heavily toward Trump in 2016, mirroring other similar regions around the country.
Trump won Luzerne in 2020 by 14.4 percentage points, a smaller margin than his 19.4 point win in 2016. With Biden out of the picture, Trump likely sees room for gains in this area of the state, said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College.
"This is the type of place where Trump has lots of strengths," Borick said, referring to the state's northeast region. "Marginal gains in a region like this certainly could have some impact on his ability to take back Pennsylvania."
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will make multiple stops across Allegheny and Beaver counties on Sunday, the campaign said. The tour is the first time Harris, Walz and their spouses have campaigned together since their first rally as a presidential ticket in Philadelphia earlier this month.
Pennsylvania was at the heart of Biden's victorious 2020strategy across the Rust Belt states: limiting Trump's margins among working-class white voters while building majorities among suburban voters and driving higher turnout in urban areas with large Black populations.
The Harris campaign is pursuing a similar "win big, lose small" strategy, aiming for large margins in the cities and suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, while limiting losses in smaller counties like Beaver County, where Trump won 58% of the vote in 2020.
Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Joseph Ax in New York; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Alistair Bell, Daniel Wallis and Paul Simao
Τελευταία νέα
Δήλωση αποποίησης ευθύνης: Οι οντότητες του ομίλου XM Group παρέχουν υπηρεσίες σε βάση εκτέλεσης μόνο και η πρόσβαση στην ηλεκτρονική πλατφόρμα συναλλαγών μας που επιτρέπει στον ενδιαφερόμενο να δει ή/και να χρησιμοποιήσει το περιεχόμενο που είναι διαθέσιμο στην ιστοσελίδα μας ή μέσω αυτής, δε διαφοροποιεί ούτε επεκτείνει αυτές τις υπηρεσίες πέραν αυτού ούτε προορίζεται για κάτι τέτοιο. Η εν λόγω πρόσβαση και χρήση υπόκεινται σε: (i) Όρους και προϋποθέσεις, (ii) Προειδοποιήσεις κινδύνου και (iii) Πλήρη δήλωση αποποίησης ευθύνης. Ως εκ τούτου, το περιεχόμενο αυτό παρέχεται μόνο ως γενική πληροφόρηση. Λάβετε ιδιαιτέρως υπόψη σας ότι τα περιεχόμενα της ηλεκτρονικής πλατφόρμας συναλλαγών μας δεν αποτελούν παρότρυνση, ούτε προσφορά για να προβείτε σε οποιεσδήποτε συναλλαγές στις χρηματοπιστωτικές αγορές. Η πραγματοποίηση συναλλαγών στις χρηματοπιστωτικές αγορές ενέχει σημαντικό κίνδυνο για το κεφάλαιό σας.
Όλο το υλικό που δημοσιεύεται στην ηλεκτρονική πλατφόρμα συναλλαγών μας προορίζεται για εκπαιδευτικούς/ενημερωτικούς σκοπούς μόνο και δεν περιέχει, ούτε θα πρέπει να θεωρηθεί ότι περιέχει συμβουλές και συστάσεις χρηματοοικονομικές ή σε σχέση με φόρο επενδύσεων και την πραγματοποίηση συναλλαγών, ούτε αρχείο των τιμών διαπραγμάτευσής μας ούτε και προσφορά ή παρότρυνση για συναλλαγή οποιωνδήποτε χρηματοπιστωτικών μέσων ή ανεπιθύμητες προς εσάς προωθητικές ενέργειες.
Οποιοδήποτε περιεχόμενο τρίτων, καθώς και περιεχόμενο που εκπονείται από την ΧΜ, όπως απόψεις, ειδήσεις, έρευνα, αναλύσεις, τιμές, άλλες πληροφορίες ή σύνδεσμοι προς ιστότοπους τρίτων το οποίο περιέχεται σε αυτήν την ιστοσελίδα παρέχεται «ως έχει», ως γενικός σχολιασμός της αγοράς και δεν αποτελεί επενδυτική συμβουλή. Στον βαθμό που οποιοδήποτε περιεχόμενο ερμηνεύεται ως επενδυτική έρευνα, πρέπει να λάβετε υπόψη και να αποδεχτείτε ότι το περιεχόμενο δεν προοριζόταν και δεν έχει προετοιμαστεί σύμφωνα με τις νομικές απαιτήσεις που αποσκοπούν στην προώθηση της ανεξαρτησίας της επενδυτικής έρευνας και ως εκ τούτου, θα πρέπει να θεωρηθεί ως επικοινωνία μάρκετινγκ σύμφωνα με τους σχετικούς νόμους και κανονισμούς. Παρακαλούμε εξασφαλίστε ότι έχετε διαβάσει και κατανοήσει τη Γνωστοποίησή μας περί Μη ανεξάρτητης επενδυτικής έρευνας και την Προειδοποίηση ρίσκου όσον αφορά τις παραπάνω πληροφορίες, τις οποίες μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ.
