The news that Trump is going virtually station JD Vance in Pennsylvania for the rest of the campaign shows that his path to the presidency is becoming PA or nothing.
Former President Donald Trump and JD Vance are in the middle of an all-out blitz in Pennsylvania, putting more emphasis on campaigning in the commonwealth than perhaps any other state.
While Trump is looking to eat into Kamala Harrisâ numbers all over the state, his campaignâs visits have predominantly centered on the rural and working-class stretches of Pennsylvania he won in 2016 and 2020. Just this week, Trump visited York, in the central part of the state, and Wilkes-Barre, in the northeast. And GOP sources told NOTUS to expect much more campaigning in those sorts of areas, from both Trump and particularly Vance.
The strategy is baffling because JD Vance isn’t playing well in Pennsylvania. Just like anywhere else that he has been deployed, the Ohio senator is the least popular candidate in the race and is not drawing big crowds. Plus, thinking that an Ohio senator is will play well in Pennsylvania displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the culture of the Keystone State that typically haunts Republicans.
The Trump campaign can try to spin this, but the truth is Vance has no value to the ticket, so they are hoping that he can activate rural white voters in the state for Trump.
Trump is using the same strategy in Pennsylvania that he failed with in 2020. Trump has to hope that he can get all of the rural white voters in the state to run up the score and negate the Democratic advantage in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
The strategy worked in 2016 because Hillary Clinton didn’t get Democratic African-American turnout to the level that she needed in the state, while the Clinton campaign also ignored rural white Democrats.
Since 2016, Republicans in the state have tried to use Trump’s strategy and failed in every statewide election in part because the population is declining in the rural red parts of the state. There are fewer Republican votes in these places that Trump needs. When that is combined with the state’s population growth happening in Democratic areas and the suburbs becoming more blue in Pennsylvania, the end result is that the state is more difficult for Republicans to win than it was eight years ago.
Trump likely can’t win the White House without Pennsylvania, and if turnout is high, it will signal that Democrats will have sealed off his only path to the presidency.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association