US elections: Pennsylvania emerges key State for both Harris, Trump

Experts feel that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump are headed for a cliffhanger in the State

Washington: Pennsylvania, the State that played a vital role in the US War of Independence, has emerged as the ground zero for the 2024 presidential elections. Political experts feel that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump are headed for a cliffhanger in the State.

One needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidential race and each of the 50 States in the US has a different number of electoral college votes. Pennsylvania has 19 while California, a Democratic bastion, has 54 electoral college votes, followed by Texas — a Republican stronghold — 40.

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Given the political support in each State, experts have already figured out the number of electoral college votes going to a candidate based on past voting patterns, except for the seven battleground states.

These seven States are Nevada, which has six electoral college votes, Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), Michigan (15), Pennsylvania (19), Georgia (16) and North Carolina (16).

With the fast-changing political dynamics, both the nominees now consider Pennsylvania a must-win. Thousands of volunteers from both Harris and Trump campaigns have arrived in this battleground state to convince the electorate to vote for their leaders.

“We do not project either candidate reaches 270 electoral votes without winning Pennsylvania, which is currently a dead tie,” The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ reported in a recent forecast and analysis of polling averages.

The respected website 270towin.com gave 226 electoral college votes to Harris and 219 to Trump. According to NBC News Election Desk, “Pennsylvania is emerging as the most critical battleground State in the 2024 election. Donald Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016 and lost it by about one percentage point in 2020.”

Kamala Harris has remained competitive there and the state is classified as a ‘toss-up’. “This is why both Harris and Trump are “pouring more money, time and energy into Pennsylvania than anywhere else, waging an ad war as they criss-cross the State,” according to The New York Times.

“There may be seven main battlegrounds in the race for the White House in 2024, all of which could prove crucial. But Pennsylvania stands apart as the state that top strategists for both Harris and Trump have circled as the likeliest to tip the election,” reported The New York Times.