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.
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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
ताजातरीन समाचार
अस्वीकरण: XM Group के सत्व केवल निष्पादन वाली सेवा और हमारी ऑनलाइन व्यापार सुविधा में पहुँच प्रदान करते हैं, ताकि व्यक्ति वेबसाइट पर या उसके जरिए उपलब्ध सामग्री को देख सके और/या उसका उपयोग कर सके। इसका प्रयोजन इसे बदलना या विस्तार देना नहीं है, न ही वह इसे बदलता या विस्तार देता है। इस तरह की पहुँच हमेशा ही निम्नलिखित के अधीन रहेगी: (1) नियम और शर्तें; (2) जोखिम चेतावनियाँ; और (3) पूर्ण अस्वीकरण। इसलिए ऐसी जानकारी सामान्य सूचना से अधिक कुछ भी नहीं है। विशेष रूप से, कृपया इससे अवगत रहें कि हमारी ऑनलाइन व्यापार सुविधा की सामग्रियाँ न तो किसी चीज का अनुरोध करती हैं, न ही वित्तीय बाजारों में प्रवेश करने की पेशकश ही करती हैं। किसी भी वित्तीय बाजार में व्यापार करने के साथ आपकी पूँजी को उल्लेखनीय जोखिम है।
हमारी ऑनलाइन व्यापार सुविधा में प्रकाशित सभी सामग्रियाँ शैक्षणिक/सूचनात्मक प्रयोजनों मात्र के लिए हैं, और इनमें वित्तीय, निवेश टैक्स या व्यापार सलाह और सुझाव नहीं हैं - न ही ऐसा समझना चाहिए कि इनमें ये सब हैं; न ही इनमें हमारी व्यापार कीमतों का अभिलेख है; न ही इनमें किसी वित्तीय उपकरण में लेन-देन करने का निमंत्रण या अनुरोध है; न ही ये आपको अवांछित वित्तयी प्रोमोशन पेश करती हैं।
इस वेबसाइट में मौजूद कोई भी तृतीय पक्षीय सामग्री, तथा XM द्वारा तैयार की गई सामग्रियाँ, जैसे: अभिप्राय, समाचार, अनुसंधान, विश्लेषण, कीमतें और अन्य सूचनाएँ या तृतीय पक्षों की साइटों के लिंक, "जैसा-है-वैसा" के आधार पर बाजार के बारे में सामान्य टिप्पणी के रूप में उपलब्ध कराई गई हैं, और वे निवेश हेतु सलाह नहीं हैं। जिस हद तक कीसी सामग्री को निवेश अनुसंधान मान लिया जाता है, उस हद तक आपको ध्यान में रखना होगा और इसे स्वीकार करना होगा कि वह सामग्री इस उद्देश्य से और निवेश अनुसंधान की स्वतंत्रता को बढ़ावा देने के लिए कानूनी आवश्यकताओं के मुताबिक, तैयार नहीं की गई है, और इसलिए उसे प्रासंगिक कानूनों और विनियमों के तहत विपणन संप्रेषण माना जाएगा। कृपया सुनिश्चित करें कि आपने गैर-आश्रित निवेश के बारे में हमारी सूचना को पढ़ और समझ लिया है। पीछे दी गई जानकारी के बारे में अनुसंधान और जोखिम चेतावनी यहाँ उपलब्ध है।
