The Presidential Race in Pennsylvania

By Henry Srebrnik,  [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

American citizens residing outside the country vote by absentee ballot in the last location that they lived in before leaving the United States.

In our case, that’s the 13th Congressional District in south-central Pennsylvania, a largely rural area that includes portions of Adams and other counties.

With its 20 Electoral College votes, the Keystone State is a must-win for President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden. Pennsylvania is among a group of competitive battleground states where this fall’s results could decide the presidency.

Although it voted Democratic in the six presidential elections prior to 2016, that election saw Republican Trump win the state by a razor-thin 48.58 per cent to 47.85 per cent for Hillary Clinton. It was one of three “blue wall” states (Michigan and Wisconsin were the others) Trump won on his way to the White House.

Pennsylvania’s two U.S. senators are divided by party, with Democrat Bob Casey Jr. and Republican Pat Toomey, making it one of nine states to have a split United States Senate delegation. There is no Senate race in the state this year,

In the House of Representatives, the 18-member delegation is also evenly split, with nine members from each party. The 13^th Congressional District is represented by John Joyce, a Republican. He is being challenged by Tom Rowley, the Democrat. With its white majority of 87 per cent, Joyce faces little opposition in this solidly Republican district.

In Pennsylvania, the president is trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. in vote-rich Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but statewide, Biden’s lead over Trump has dropped by 1.4 points.

The former Vice President now holds a small 49 per cent to 46 per cent lead over Trump among likely Pennsylvania voters, according to a recent AARP-commissioned public opinion survey.

Trump has pivoted to a “law and order” message in the state amid protests over racial injustice. The Republicans believe efforts to paint Biden as weak on crime will help Trump win back suburban voters, and especially women, who supported him in 2016 but have since soured on him.

To that end, Trump and his team have been paying frequent visits to the state as they work to build enthusiasm. “Trump is just on the wavelength of rural America in a way that previous Republicans were not,” remarked David Hopkins, an associate professor of political science at Boston College and the author of “Red Fighting Blue: How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics.”

However, Biden appeals more to rural voters than Clinton did. He was born into a working-class Irish Catholic family in Scranton.

This month also saw two major developments that are a source of worry for Trump. A story published by the Atlantic magazine – a fiercely pro-Democratic publication – claimed that a few years ago on a European trip Trump called U.S. soldiers injured or killed in war “losers,” and questioned the country’s reverence for them.

Trump angrily denied the article’s claims, calling it a “disgrace.” He holds the military “in the highest regard,” White House spokeswoman Alyssa Farah said in response. “He’s demonstrated his commitment to them at every turn: delivering on his promise to give our troops a much needed pay raise, increasing military spending, signing critical veterans reforms, and supporting military spouses. This has no basis in fact.”

Then came the publication of veteran reporter Bob Woodward’s book “Rage.” An associate editor of the “Washington Post,” also a partisan newspaper supporting Biden in this election, Woodward interviewed Trump in January and asserts that the president knew the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic but downplayed its severity.

“I wanted to always play it down,” the president told him. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” With close to 200,000 deaths by mid-September, this seems damning in retrospect.

Will these revelations change Trump’s level of support? Perhaps, though probably many of his backers will ignore the new information or even be critical of its release so close to the election. We shall see.

As it stands now, the 13^th district of Pennsylvania will remain in Trump’s column, and Joyce will retain his seat, but the state itself remains Biden’s to lose.