Pennsylvania is haunted by its many claims to historical distinction. Its largest metropolis was the “workshop of the world” but remains America’s poorest big city. Its south-central farms and northeastern mountains boast the richest soil and coal veins, respectively, but sterile town-like developments and mammoth warehouses now dominate the land. And its defining steel company, which built America’s skyscrapers and ships, could be ultimately acquired by a Japanese corporation.
Now, following a summer of cataclysms, voters comprise Pennsylvania’s most precious resource. The Keystone State that fuelled America’s industrial revolution now decides presidential elections — and draws hundreds of millions of dollars for the prize. Pennsylvania has long played an outsized role in US electoral politics, and a bipartisan consensus has respected, or feared, the state’s pivotal distinction.
It was the case in 1944, when a Newsweek panel declared that Pennsylvania’s 35 Electoral College votes — then the second-most behind New York — would decide that year’s presidential election, won by Franklin D. Roosevelt. It happened again in 1980, when a Ronald Reagan spokesman said of Pennsylvania: “If there is a more critical state, I’d like to know about it.” And it was apparent in 2008, when Philadelphia native and politics connoisseur Chris Matthews told one state newspaper that Republicans “need Pennsylvania”; John McCain then lost the state — and the race. By 2016, Obama-to-Trump voters delivered Pennsylvania for Republicans, but then the state reversed course in 2020.
Since 1948, no Democratic presidential candidate has secured the White House without winning Pennsylvania. Overall, the state has favoured 10 of the past 12 election victors.
Armed with 19 electoral college votes, a fraction of its past tally, Pennsylvania has the largest bounty among the seven swing states. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are tied in the state. As elections analyst Nate Silver views it, Pennsylvania has a 35% chance of tipping the presidential race.
John Updike, the late writer defined by stories about his native Pennsylvania, once told Life magazine: “I like middles. It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules.” In Pennsylvania, the prevailing electoral mood remains so unclear because of this clash, which is intensified by its demographic complexity when compared to other swing states. Even since 2016, Pennsylvania has experienced profound demographic and economic change — from increasingly Latino-majority cities to booming healthcare-driven suburbs— making that year’s presidential election a fruitless baseline for understanding the state’s present electoral map.
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