How Pennsylvania holds the keys to the White House

Washington DC — On July 4, Matthew Carter Wood, 52, along with his daughter joined "Free Palestine" march in Chicago to express solidarity with Palestinians and demand Democrats impose pressure on Israel to end its war on besieged Gaza.

Such protests in America, as is obvious, have done little or nothing to change the Biden administration's policy on the Gaza war.

"When it comes to foreign policy it seems it takes a special leader to fix things, I don't think we have that special kind of leader, in this light, both Harris and Trump are terrible choices," Wood, who works in mortgage industry, in Delaware County of Pennsylvania state, tells TRT World.

Wood, who registered as a Republican voter in the 2016 US election, won by Donald Trump, and then as a Democrat in subsequent elections, says he will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris on November 5 because of Harris' focus on abortion rights, transforming health insurance into a single-payer system and the belief that she will just be better at the work of governance.

Voters such as Wood could be the game changers in US elections.

Pundits and politicians both consider Pennsylvania as the most decisive state in the American election, carrying 19 electoral votes, the most in any swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina.

Trump, Harris turbocharge efforts in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania voted for Democrats in every presidential election since 1992. Trump won it in 2016 by less than a percentage point. US President Joe Biden won it back in 2020, by a little over a percentage point.

Pennsylvania is so significant that both Trump and Harris have turbocharged their efforts to win Pennsylvania, conducting rallies and wooing voters in critical swing areas of the state.

Trump snagging a win in Pennsylvania on November 5 could be a major hurdle for Harris' path to victory.

He also now has support from billionaire Elon Musk, who has donated tens of millions of dollars to Trump's campaign and is also holding "a series of talks throughout Pennsylvania".

The tech tycoon is gifting $1 million daily to voters in swing states.

"We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. … We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election," Musk said at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Bellwether swing counties of Pennsylvania

But Democrats having flipped it in 2020 and won in 2022 down-ballot contests — races for Congress, state legislatures, governor, judicial positions, and other state and local offices — the party would want to prevent Trump from grabbing the battleground state where early voting is already underway.

As of now, Harris is tied with Trump in Pennsylvania, according to new polls while they are neck-and-neck nationally in the race for the White House. Harris is slightly leading in four key battleground states, while Trump is slightly ahead in two, according to a poll conducted by the Washington Post-Schar School.

As is a norm in American elections, electoral results in just a few key swing states will play major roles in determining the final outcome.

But experts such as David Schultz, who teaches political science and legal studies at Hamline University and is editor of Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter, believe the fate of the entire presidential contest now rests on "few swing counties" of the swing states.

"Erie County is a good bellwether but I think Lackawanna County is better. Traditionally Lackawanna was union, coal mining, and manufacturing. Democrats won it big, including Obama in 2012. I argued in 2016 if Trump won it or got close he would win PA and win the presidency. He got within two points of winning the county (a country where Hillary Clinton's family was from), won Pennsylvania, and won the presidency," Schultz tells TRT World.

"In 2020 Biden (he was from Scranton) won the county by about five points and then went on to win the state and then the presidency," Schultz says, adding, "I place Lackawanna, Erie, and then Allegheny as the three most important counties in terms of bellwethers."