New Delhi:
Votes in the US state of Pennsylvania hold the power to make or break the chances of entering the White House for both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Pennsylvania holds 19 electoral votes. It was pivotal for the Democrats win in the 2020 election.
Here’s your 10-point cheatsheet to this big story
- Formally called the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Democrats (blues) have enjoyed good strength in Pennsylvania since 1992, except in 2016 when the Republican (reds) leader Donald Trump was elected President.
- Not getting big numbers in Pennsylvania could worsen Kamala Harris’ chances as no Democrat has entered the White House without Pennsylvania since 1948.
- There are six lakh Asian-Americans in Pennsylvania, with Indian-Americans comprising the largest group. The Trump and Harris campaigns have acknowledged they face the toughest challenge in this state.
- The major concerns in Pennsylvania include rising inflation and pressure on cost of living. For some time grocery prices have been rising the fastest in Pennsylvania.
- Though Pennsylvania is considered a swing state with 19 electoral votes, it is no longer what it used to be a century ago when it had 38 electoral votes, double of what it has now. Many industrial states in the northern parts of the US have seen people migrate to other areas. Pennsylvania was no exception.
- To win the US elections, a candidate needs 270 of the electoral college votes. The results in seven battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia will decide who will be the next President.
- Along with Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia have an inordinate influence on deciding the winner because unlike the other states which are firmly with either party, these states can go either way – with the reds or the blues.
- Donald Trump has been talking about illegal migration, crime, bringing back manufacturing and jobs, and inflation while also going off the teleprompter to add impromptu comments. In Pennsylvania, he mostly dumped the machines and went extempore.
- A day before the election, the presidential race appears to be hurtling toward a photo finish, with the final set of polls by The New York Times and Siena College finding Kamala Harris gaining new strength in North Carolina and Georgia.
- Pennsylvania is also known as a “keystone state”, to mean a central, wedge-shaped stone which holds all the other stones of a structure in place to form an arch. In early America, Pennsylvania played a vital geographic and strategic role in holding together the states of the newly formed Union.
