Written by: Randy Chow 🇺🇸
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Democrat Kamala Harris led Republican Donald Trump by 2 points among likely Pennsylvania voters, a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll found.
Although she polled higher than Trump, the vice president’s lead is well within the poll’s margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.
Pennsylvania, which has the most electoral votes of any swing state at 19, has been hotly contested in recent elections – Trump and Joe Biden won the state by an average of less than 1 point in 2016 and 2020, respectively.
Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told CNN that the closeness of this race isn’t surprising given how tight the state’s past presidential elections have been.
“It shouldn’t shock anyone that the polls are within a point or so,” he said. “These are close races.”
Winning the Keystone State is a top priority for both candidates as Democrats have spent about $159 million on political ads in Pennsylvania, while Republicans have spent about $120 million, reported AdImpact, an intelligence firm that tracks advertising spending across the nation.
“We win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” Trump said at his town hall in Oaks. “Bottom line … we win this great commonwealth, we are going to win the whole ball game.”
Harris reminded supporters in Erie that early voting has already started in the state and stressed the importance of this year’s election.
“When freedom is on the line, Americans always answer the call,” Harris said. “In this election, we will answer the call again.”
Arnie Schwartz, 73, of Delaware County, said he doesn’t know which candidate a majority of Pennsylvania voters prefer. But he’ll be voting for Harris, he told La Voz Latina.
More than a million mail and absentee ballots were returned in Pennsylvania – 59.4% were from Democratic voters, 30.4% were from Republicans and 10.2% were from independents, reported VoteHub, a nonpartisan top-quality election polls aggregator.
Harry Enten, a senior political data reporter, said on CNN that early voting trends are not a good predictor for who’ll win the election.
“Don’t read anything into any of these trends,” Enten said. “An election day vote counts the same as an early in-person vote or a mail vote.”
According to Jonathan Tamari, a senior political reporter for Bloomberg, either candidate can plausibly win.
With the state’s future undecided, both candidates are attempting to appeal to working-class voters. Trump is trying to earn support from working-class Black and Latino voters, while Harris tries to win over support from white working-class voters, Tamari said.
“A tiny, tiny shift in any group can make a difference,” he said.
The Washington Post-Schar School poll surveyed 707 likely voters between Sept. 30 to Oct. 15.