PoliticoIn 2020 US election race, Pennsylvania emerges as the keystone state
- Trump and Biden are both crisscrossing Pennsylvania in final days
- Biden is beating Trump by 4 or 5 percentage points here, according to polls
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Holly Otterbein and Marc Caputo on politico.com on November 1, 2020.
The campaigns of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have made the swing state of Pennsylvania their home in the last three days of the US presidential election.
Trump spent Saturday criss-crossing the state from the Delaware Valley to fracking country to north central Pennsylvania to stage four rallies. He’ll return for a stop in the northeast on the eve of the election. Biden sees Pennsylvania as so important that he is spending the final day of the 2020 campaign here, barnstorming “all four corners of the state” with his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, and their spouses, staff said.
“We are the Keystone State,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro. “It’s clear from an Electoral College perspective, if you look at the map from last cycle, just how pivotal Pennsylvania is. At the end of the day, I think if Pennsylvania goes, so will go the country.”
Biden is beating Trump by 4 or 5 percentage points here, according to polling averages – a decent but not overwhelming lead that is within some surveys’ margin of error. Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes have more psychological significance to Biden’s campaign than any other state. Biden’s political persona is rooted in his childhood in Scranton, his campaign was headquartered in Philadelphia until the pandemic began, and he has held more events in Pennsylvania than any other battleground.
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