Harris’s ‘Pennsylvania Problem’ is Actually a ‘Blue Wall’ Problem

On the eve of the 2020 election, the RealClearPolitics average of polls in Pennsylvania showed President Joe Biden leading former President Donald Trump by 1.2%. Lo and behold, Biden won the state by 1.2%.

The average had tightened significantly since Sept. 29, 2020, when Biden led by 5.7%. (For comparison, on this date in 2016, Hillary Clinton was up 2.4%. In the final read before the election, she was up by 2.1%, ultimately losing to Trump by 0.7%.)

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris is just 0.4% ahead of Trump. If polls in the state are as accurate as the final read was in 2020, she could eke out a small win. Out of the ten polls included in the RCP average, six show a tied race. In two others, Trump leads by 1 and 2 points. In the two remaining polls, Harris leads by 2 and 5 points. If we exclude the 5-point poll, which looks outlier, Trump is ahead by 0.2%.

Additionally, a poll released on Saturday by AtlasIntel, the most accurate pollster in the 2020 election cycle, showed Trump on top by 2.9%. (This poll is not included in the RCP average.)

Obviously, Pennsylvania is a must-win state for both campaigns. Unfortunately for Harris, winning the Keystone State is becoming far more challenging than it was four years ago for Biden. Perhaps she should have chosen Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate.

According to Politico’s Charles F. McElwee, the difficulty lies in the “culturally conservative” northeastern corner of the state. He noted, “Joe Biden’s local ties and cultural roots kept him competitive” in this area. He saw Harris’s “prospects in the heavily Catholic, working-class region” as “dicier.”

Lackawanna County has the second-highest Catholic population in the state, and Harris’s chances of winning depend, to some extent, on how well she does there. McElwee pointed out that voters in this area preferred Biden, “an older, white, Catholic man with an affinity for the working class,” at the top of the ticket and implies that voters view Harris with some suspicion.

It’s the cultural dissonance with Harris, a Californian and woman of color who has spearheaded the party’s post-Dobbs abortion messaging. That profile makes her an awkward fit in a closely watched, economically hard-pressed working-class region that’s historically been a locus of anti-abortion activity.Biden isn’t wildly popular here. But as a native son, Biden is viewed through a nostalgic lens. To many in this once staunchly Democratic region, he embodies an older iteration of the party that was closely tied to organized labor and focused on economic issues. Even though Biden moved to Delaware as a child, he remained in close contact with the city of his birth and was seen locally as a protective force against the national party’s progressive flank.

If Biden struggled in this part of Pennsylvania in 2020, how much more will Harris struggle four years later?

Harris has the distinction of being the first vice president or president ever to visit an abortion clinic, an occasion that she has boasted about. How will that fly with the folks in Lackawanna County? Pssst. It won’t.

Although she touts her “middle class” roots at every opportunity, she has no clue of the issues the average American is facing due to the inflation directly caused by the Biden-Harris administration’s policy failures. During a recent livestream with Oprah Winfrey, Harris was asked by a young couple what she would do to lower prices. Harris said one way to do that is to “bring down the cost of everyday necessities including groceries.”

She has no clue about the economy or how to fix it, and voters are starting to see that. Two recent polls of Teamster labor union members prove it. In an electronic poll, 59% of members favored Trump, compared to just 34% who preferred Harris. In a telephone poll, members chose Trump by a nearly two-to-one margin over Harris.

Responding to the Politico article, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey wrote that Harris’s issues in northeastern Pennsylvania signal similar difficulties in other blue wall states. He looked at the polling and electoral histories in the states of Wisconsin and Michigan over the last three presidential election cycles. In 2016, Trump narrowly defeated Clinton in both states and in 2020, Biden narrowly defeated Trump. On this date in 2016, Clinton led Trump by 4.7% in both states, and on this date in 2020, Biden led Trump by 6.2% in Wisconsin and 5.2% in Michigan. Today, Harris leads Trump by a single point in Wisconsin and by 1.7 points in Michigan.

Based on this history, a dead heat in the polls, accompanied by a stall in momentum for Harris that has persisted for over a month, could mean that Trump is actually slightly ahead. We know her honeymoon has been over for some time and part of that is because the electorate has gotten to know her a little better. Although Harris hides from most public appearances that require her to speak off the cuff, to the extent that she does, she largely recites the same lines she memorized for the August debate or else she dodges the questions. Even liberal journalists have caught on.

Yes, Kamala has a “Pennsylvania problem.” But as Morrissey points out, she also has a “blue wall” problem. And those are the states that will decide the presidency.


Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

Tags: 2024 Presidential Election, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Pennsylvania

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