Pennsylvania holds the key to the White House. Who will win it?

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

Such protests in America have done little or nothing to change the Biden administration's policy on the Gaza war. Washington continues to give diplomatic and military backing to Tel Aviv.

"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 the mortgage industry in Delaware County of Pennsylvania state, tells TRT World.

Wood's journey as a voter is a microcosm of how people can influence the outcome of the election in one of the most important states in the US.

In the 2016 election, he had registered as a Republican voter but did not vote for Donald Trump on the election day. The Republican leader won that election. Wood did not explain why he had a change of heart. Since then he's a registered Democratic voter and plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris on November 5.

He cites Harris' focus on abortion rights and her promise to transform health insurance into a single-payer system as some of the reasons that convinced him to vote for her.

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. Then, Trump won in 2016 by less than a percentage point. US President Joe Biden won it back for the Democrats in 2020 by a little over a percentage point, underlining the tight race in the state.

In Pennsylvania, white working-class voters are a key group for Harris and Trump.

They were important supporters of Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

Economy, immigration, healthcare, education and housing affordability remain some of the key issues for voters in this swing state.

Pennsylvania is so significant that both Trump and Harris have turbocharged their efforts to win Pennsylvania, speaking at 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 giving away $1 million daily to voters in swing states in a bid to get their support for the Republicans.

"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, last week.

Bellwether swing counties of Pennsylvania

Despite Musk's throwing up his cash vault, Democrats are upbeat about their success in Pennsylvania, the battleground state where early voting is already underway.

Democrats managed to flip the vote in their favour in 2020 and later went on to win important contests for Congress, state legislature, the office of governor, judicial positions, and other state and local offices

As of now, Trump is slightly leading Harris 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 recent 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."