The Biden campaign will go all-in on Pennsylvania in the final day of campaigning before Election Day.
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their spouses Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff will fan out across the four corners of the battleground state for a “barnstorm” on Monday, making a major push to secure a win in the state that President Trump won in 2016 by little more than 44,000 votes.
The former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee is also slated to make an address on Sunday from Philadelphia.
The decision to concentrate the four in Pennsylvania underscores the importance of the state. The majority of Trump’s potential paths to another victory include winning the state’s 20 Electoral College votes again. A Biden win in the state would block those paths, making an overall Biden victory more likely.
The RealClearPolitics average of Pennsylvania polls finds the former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee with a 3.2 point lead over Trump.
Trump’s closing message to Pennsylvanians centers on the energy industry. Fracking accounts for tens of thousands of jobs in the state. The president’s campaign has singled out Biden’s final debate statement that he wants to “transition from the oil industry.”
“You don’t need a president like that. That means no fracking, no natural gas, no coal, no jobs, no energy, no Pennsylvania family being well taken care of,” Trump said at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this week.
Biden and Harris, meanwhile, have tried to rebut Trump’s message and communicate that Biden does not support banning fracking, despite his previous statements to the contrary. He also stresses his own ties to the state, being born in Scranton and attending school there until his family moved to Delaware when he was 10 years old.
Pennsylvania has been Biden’s most-visited state in the last two months of the campaign as he has scaled back his campaign travel and event sizes due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is easy for the former vice president to get to from his Wilmington, Delaware home — sometimes just popping right over the state line to Philadelphia to deliver a speech.
Monday will mark Biden’s 12th day campaigning in the state since Sept. 1, including one day when he visited the 9/11 memorial and two televised town halls. That’s more than twice as many visits as Biden has made to any other battleground states.
The focus on Pennsylvania in the final days rather than other battleground states is also a reflection of where votes are still up for grabs, as the state has much lower early voting levels than other battlegrounds. Early in-person voting ended on Tuesday, though voters who requested a mail-in ballot can still drop off their ballots at designated locations.
According to University of Florida professor Michael McDonald’s United States Election Project tracking early votes cast and mail-in votes received, early votes received in Pennsylvania as a percentage of 2016 total turnout is 34.3%. Florida’s early vote as a percentage of 2016 total sits at 81.6%. in North Carolina, it is at 85.6%, and Texas has surpassed 100%.
Trump will tour Pennsylvania with three signature rallies on Saturday, making stops in Bucks County, Reading, and Butler. It will mark his 8th visit to the state since Sept. 1, tied for most-visited with his number of past and scheduled days in North Carolina and Florida.
On Monday, Trump is slated to return to North Carolina after a rally in Fayetteville on Thursday was rescheduled due to weather. Then, he’ll make a stop in Scranton, Pennsylvania, likely a deliberate attempt to show his support in Biden’s hometown, and then make two stops in Michigan and one in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The president had another all-day campaign trip with three rallies in Pennsylvania on Oct. 26, showing that he, too, is all-in on the state.
