But it’s not clear the anti-tariff message will succeed in Pennsylvania. As it stands, Casey, locked in a tough re-election fight himself, is running an ad boasting of his support for Trump’s tariffs during his first term — a message that has Trump’s allies feeling particularly confident about the former president’s standing in the state.
“It’s going to hit home in Pennsylvania in particular,” said state Rep. Josh Kail, who chairs the state House Republican campaign committee.
And a senior Trump adviser felt the state was setting up well for the former president in large part because of the economic concerns. This person also pointed to the Casey ad as further evidence.
Though Trump’s ad blitz has focused most heavily on immigration, his economic message — namely blaming Harris for “skyrocketing” prices — has been a fixture of his over-the-air campaign, too, AdImpact tracking showed.
“He clearly has devoted a ton of attention and a ton of time and resources there,” this person said of Pennsylvania. “I think the message is right. I mean, honest to God, Harris broke it, Trump will fix it, I think that speaks to Pennsylvania almost specifically, because of the economy. Their concern about the fossil fuel industries, fracking in particular.”
The battle at the margins
Trump is the only Republican to carry Pennsylvania in a presidential election over the last three decades. And since his 2016 win, no Republican has won a top-of-the-ticket statewide race here.
But there’s little doubt, even among Democrats, about Trump’s staying power in the state. And after the assassination attempt in July, officials and operatives said his brand here only grew stronger.
“You had a transformative, transformational situation” with the assassination attempt, Fetterman said, adding, “And then I would never tell everybody to deny what your eyes are showing. I mean, drive around, see the visuals and all these kinds of things.”
Trump has also benefited from a sense among supporters that it’s no longer taboo to publicly support him and that his coalition has morphed into something different compared to 2016 and 2020.
This dynamic was on display at a panel with former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and television psychologist Phil McGraw in Lancaster, where self-described “Make America Healthy Again” Republicans packed a sports venue and joined in railing against the impact of “seed oils” and the rate of chronic diseases.
“I feel like it’s becoming the cool kind of rebel thing to vote for Trump,” Kail said. “I just don’t feel like there’s this coyness anymore amongst Trump supporters.”
In a more tangible way, the Trump campaign feels good about its chances in the state because of positive voter registration shifts and polling that is better than his past runs.
“We feel confident about things,” a Trump campaign official said. “We also have been through 2022 and certainly 2020, so it’s not lost on us … there’s still a very real and significant chance we could lose this.”
“I’m just not used to us being ahead in any poll, in any situation ever, and we are now,” this person added. “Talk to some of the older guys here, and they get a lot of 2016 vibes.”
Yet, Democrats see plenty to glean in early vote data — particularly that Democratic women and Democratic men are the two biggest groups showing up at polls who did not cast ballots in 2020. After President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Democrats said they’ve been able to translate excitement about Harris into a wave of volunteers and activist energy. That culminated Saturday when her volunteers knocked on more than 800,000 doors in the state in one day, her campaign said.
“No more 80-year-olds!” said Ryan Nash, 38, a Harris supporter who lives in Bucks County. “I’m not saying Biden doesn’t care, but he won’t be here much longer and it’s nice to have people [running for office] who have some future ahead of them.”
Trump, meanwhile, is narrowly tailoring his ground game to low-propensity voters while much of the GOP canvassing effort has been outsourced to a super PAC largely financed by Elon Musk.