Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has called Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona the must-watch battleground states on election night, but the early returns now show trouble for his campaign in the aptly name Keystone State.
Trump's campaign rally mantra has been "too big to rig," seeking to run up the score to make a lead insurmountable. But Vice President Kamala Harris' early vote strength in Pennsylvania might be giving her a large cushion of votes going into Election Day on Nov. 5.
Trump beat Joe Biden on Election Day in 2020, only to find the win evaporate as mail-in ballots were counted. In his 2022 Senate race, Dr. Mehmet Oz handily won on Election Day against John Fetterman. But Fetterman had so many mail-in votes, he became the state's U.S. senator.
This year, close to 2 million mail-in ballots have been requested and nearly 1 million early Pennsylvania votes have already been cast. Bad news again for Republicans: These early votes come from an overwhelming majority of registered Democrat voters (64%), according to NBC News' early vote tracker Tuesday morning.
While these ballots are not actual votes for Kamala Harris, about 90% of Democratic registered ballots historically go to the party's candidate. Ditto for Republican ballots going to the GOP's candidate. So far, registered Republicans have cast just 27% of Pennsylvania's mail-in and early in-person votes to date. This number is up slightly from 2020 when 24% of ballots came from registered Republicans. Another 9% of ballots cast have come from those registered independent or with another party.
Some pundits argue that Pennsylvania, the largest of the seven battleground states, is absolutely critical for a Harris or Trump win in the Electoral College. Pennsylvania holds 19 electoral college votes with 270 needed to clinch the presidency.
The others key swing states are Arizona (11 electoral votes), Georgia (16), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), and Wisconsin (10%). Republicans' early vote ground game is doing better at getting registered Republican votes cast in other battleground states:
- Arizona (385,000 votes cast): GOP 44%, Democrat 35%
- Georgia (nearly 1.7 million): GOP 49%, Democrat 46%
- Michigan (more than 1 million): Democrat 54%, GOP 36%
- Nevada (247,000): Democrat 40%, GOP 35%
- North Carolina (more than 1 million): Democrat 36%, GOP 33%
- Wisconsin (326,000): Other 41%, Democrat 40%, GOP 19%
When asked last week at a Chicago economic forum which state is going to decide the election, Trump showed no hesitation in pointing to the Keystone State as the key to the election. "Pennsylvania, I would say mostly," he said.
While there have been 921,720 early votes already cast by mail and in-person in Pennsylvania, there have been 1,843,687 mail-in ballots requested.
If current trends continue, the Democrats will enter Election Day with about 1 million votes already secured.
Pennsylvania's early in-person voting began Sept. 16 and the deadline to register to vote was Monday, Oct. 21. There remains a week left of early in-person voting, which ends Oct. 29 — a week before the Nov. 5 Election Day.
Pennsylvania is considered a swing state, but in the past seven presidential elections there has not been much in the way of swinging. It has been a Democrat stronghold, with Trump's surprise 2016 win the only anomaly.
At the moment Trump leads the RealClearPolitics polling average in the state by 0.8% points — similar to the 0.7% margin he won by in 2016.
All of the polls in that data set are within the margin of error, making the race a virtual statistical tie as early voting continues in Pennsylvania, making voter turnout, and perhaps the early ballots, the likely deciding factor.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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