There’s been a lot of talk about battleground states heading into next month’s election, but it’s possible that who wins the White House in November comes down to how just one state votes — Pennsylvania.
Nate Silver, an elections analyst, recently calculated that whichever candidate wins Pennsylvania next month will have a greater than 90% chance to win the election.
Patrick Murphy, a former Democratic congressman from the state who represented a district in the northeastern part of the state, said:
“It’s the granddaddy of all the swing states.”
Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous state in America and holds 19 electoral votes. This makes it a huge target for both major presidential candidates — Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.
Many electoral pundits have painted the picture for how each candidate will be able to capture the White House.
According to most projections, if Harris is able to capture Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and one of Nebraska’s congressional districts, she will become the next U.S. president and the first female to ever hold the post.
Conversely, if Trump is able to capture Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, then he will return to the White House for another term.
If Trump doesn’t win Pennsylvania, there’s no logical path for him to win the White House if he doesn’t also flip at least three states that President Joe Biden won back in the 2020 election.
This is what makes Pennsylvania the key to the White House in this year’s election.
In many ways, Pennsylvania resembles the entirety of the U.S. — from a political, economic and demographic standpoint.
Once a major manufacturing state, Pennsylvania has transformed to many newer businesses in newer industries. At the same time, there is still a large energy sector there because of oil shale deposits that are quite abundant.
It’s also a major agricultural state, with it being the second-largest industry in Pennsylvania.
While a majority of the state is white, there are many immigrant communities that are growing.
Some areas, such as Allentown are now majoritively Hispanic. The Black population sits at 12% of the state’s overall population, slightly below the total for the entire U.S., which is 13%.
There are two major urban areas in Pennsylvania — Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — and each traditionally favor Democrats in a big way. Between those two cities, which sit on opposite sides of the state, are rural regions that traditionally side with Republicans.
Pennsylvanians suburbs once were considered reliably conservative, but they have shifted to the left much more in the last few years.
It’s why many people have jokingly described Pennsylvania as being made up of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in the middle.
In many recent presidential elections, Pennsylvania has been just about evenly split, which makes it such a key state for each candidate to capture.
When Trump won the White House in 2016, he won Pennsylvania by only roughly 40,000 votes. When Biden won the White House four years later, he took Pennsylvania by only about 80,000 votes.
It’s likely that it will be another close election this year, and Pennsylvania is sure to be a key to victory.
