A few days before the presidential election, scheduled for November 5, Pennsylvania is focusing much of the attention of observers. This northeastern American state is considered key in an election that promises to be very close.
A particularly coveted state. For several months, the two presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have been increasing their trips to Pennsylvania.
On Sunday, October 27, the Democrat visited this northeastern American state again for her fourteenth visit in just a few months of campaigning. His rival Donald Trump has also extensively surveyed this state in recent weeks. The businessman held a major meeting there at the beginning of October alongside the tech billionaire Elon Muskin Butler, site of his first assassination attempt last July.
The candidates are not focusing their efforts on Pennsylvania by chance. This state is one of the seven “swing states”, i.e. the pivotal states considered key to winning the presidential election on November 5.
Among the seven key states, Pennsylvania is particularly coveted. In question, the high number of electoral votes that it allows to win, 19, against for example only 6 for Nevada, another “swing state” with a very uncertain outcome.
A “tiny” gap between the candidates
Pennsylvania appears to be a “very undecided” state, Alexis Pichard, professor of American civilization at the University of Paris-Nanterre, tells BFMTV.com.
The gap between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in opinion polls is of the order of a few tenths of a point, according to the latest polls, which is “tiny”, according to this specialist in the United States. Enough to leave uncertainty surrounding the identity of the winner in this state on November 5.
“In the polls, the trend changes from one day to the next,” summarizes the researcher.
This indecision could be a sign that the vote will be decided by a few thousand votes. Already in 2020, Joe Biden won thanks to a minimal lead against Donald Trump by winning 50.01% of the vote, or only 80,000 votes more than his rival. Four years earlier, it was the businessman who had won, again narrowly, with barely more than 40,000 votes than his opponent at the time, Hillary Clinton.
Most advertising spend
This indecision weighs on the final outcome of the vote. “For Kamala Harris, it will be almost impossible to win without Pennsylvania,” says Alexis Pichard, thus underlining the importance of this state in the race for the White House.
Aurore Portet, professor at Sciences Po Lyon and specialist in American politics, is less formal. For her, “all attention is focused on the seven key states” currently because “the election is already decided in many states, such as California, which will be Democratic, or Mississippi, which will be, unsurprisingly, Republican” . However, the teacher believes that “at this stage, (it is) impossible to make a prediction about the candidate who will win in (the key states), and therefore at the national level.”
The fact remains that in order to convince voters in these regions, both parties are investing colossal sums of money. According to AdImpact, an agency which compiles the advertising expenditures of political parties, the Democratic camp spent 159.1 million dollars and the Republican party 120.2 million just for this state, between July 22, which corresponds to the announcement of the withdrawal of Joe Biden, and October 7. Pennsylvania is the state where both parties have spent the most money in recent weeks.
The particularly coveted Latino vote
With this abundance of advertising, Democrats and Republicans intend to influence the vote in Pennsylvania by playing on two factors in particular, according to Aurore Portet.
“Both parties are trying to encourage people to go and vote in this state because the participation rate will make the difference,” she initially emphasizes to BFMTV.com, reminding in passing that the Americans are in on average, far fewer people go to the polling stations than the French. However, given the small gap announced between the two candidates, “the election can be decided by participation”, she believes.
[Allô Washington] – The importance of the Latin American vote
Furthermore, the two parties “are trying to play on the vote of Latin Americans”, according to Aurore Portet, while there is a significant community in this state, with nearly 600,000 Hispanics likely to participate in the election.
“It is not an electorate committed to a particular cause,” recalls Aurore Portet, who emphasizes that it is a population made up of “numerous subcategories” depending on their country of origin in particular and led to vote in different ways. various. Faced with this uncertainty, they are therefore the subject of diligent courtship by both parties. It remains to be seen whether the recent controversial remarks of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who compared Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage” during a Donald Trump rally, will have an influence on the vote of this electorate.
A state marked by deindustrialization
Beyond this Latin American population, the main issue for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, if they want to win in Pennsylvania, will be to seduce voters affected by deindustrialization and worried about their jobs.
In fact, Pennsylvania belongs to the “rust belt”, the name given to these states in the northeast of the country facing an economic decline caused by the sharp decline in the use of heavy industries from the late 1950s.
“Pennsylvania has long been Democratic because it is a historically working-class state with powerful unions supported by the Democratic camp,” recalls Aurore Portet.
Hydraulic fracture as a crucial issue
Despite this Democratic tradition in Pennsylvania, a state where Donald Trump's speech on immigration and social issues does not generally find much resonance, the Republican candidate manages to create a surprise in 2016 and to win at the expense of 'Hillary Clinton.
To achieve this, Aurore Portet believes that Donald Trump relied above all on a “populist” discourse by defending the “Americans' wallet” and “America First, that is to say American protectionism”. He therefore focused on the issues of employment and income, dear to the residents of Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump notably attracted some of the inhabitants of this state in 2016 by defending hydraulic fracturing, this technique of extracting natural gas which made it possible to revive employment in the industrial sector in the region. Arguments on which he hopes to once again prosper this year.
For her part, Kamala Harris was forced to “modify her speech” on this controversial technique, according to Alexis Pichard. While she declared herself in favor of its ban a few years ago, for environmental reasons, the Democrat has since reversed her position so as not to cut herself off from the working electorate.
A state that “reflects the whole” of the country
In addition to this large working-class population, Pennsylvania is made up of very diverse electorates. There we find in particular “a divide between rural and urban electorates in particular” with large cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh inhabited by a significant African-American population and affluent suburbs that are predominantly white. There is also an “opposition in terms of level of study and in terms of socio-economic levels”, indicates the teacher at Sciences Po Lyon.
In Pennsylvania, the “statistics reflect the entire United States,” summarizes Aurore Portet.
On the evening of November 5, this key state should be “scrutinized carefully”, believes Alexis Pichard. However, it will be better to be patient before the results are announced. Because between the expected small number of votes difference and the counting of remote votes which can only begin on election day, the wait should therefore be long.
“There will be cases of possible litigation,” adds the researcher, while Donald Trump has repeatedly affirmed that the only possibility for him to lose the election would be if the Democrats rigged the results. “We are in for a close and tense election,” warns Aurore Portet.
