Today, Explained - How to win Pennsylvania

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Vox’s Christian Paz and Miles Bryan head to Philadelphia and Lancaster to see what the Harris and Trump campaigns are doing to win the state. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Victoria Chamberlin, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Rob Byers, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Trump speaking in Erie, PA this weekend. Photo by DUSTIN FRANZ/AFP via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes could easily decide the 2024 election, and both campaigns know it. So Donald Trump got weird and eerie on Sunday. Her whole life, she's, you will never frack, never frack. There will be no petroleum product. We're going to go to wind. Everything is going to be wind. And Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will take a bus tour through central PA this week. The campaigns aren't taking a single vote for granted, and that means chasing votes in places that no one assumes they can win. Harris is investing in rural areas. It's a whole county goal. It's not just the city.

And Trump is courting Black and Hispanic voters in Pennsylvania's cities. He survived all of those attacks that we get all the time as a Black man. The system against us. Criminal justice unfair. And then you got the, what, the prosecutor running for president? Oh, no. I'm going for Trump. It's coming up on Today Explained.

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Today Explained. Battleground States. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I'm Noelle King. There are 35 days until the 2024 election. And once a week until then, we're going to be looking at one of the seven swing states. They could go either way. They will decide the election. Last week, we were in Georgia. And today we're in Pennsylvania,

where Philly Bureau Chief Miles Bryan and Vox senior politics reporter Christian Paz have been reporting. Christian, tell me about the last month. Yeah, so I think it's always great to go out to what's arguably the most important state in this election. And we went out to Pennsylvania because it's a place where the Harris and Trump campaign have really pulled out all the stops. They've been flooding it with spending. They've been sending surrogates there. I think it's the place that they've campaigned in the most this year. And you also see one of the central themes of the election. That's about the margins. It's about winning votes on the margins just because of how

entrenched polarization and partisanship are within each party's base. And it's the kind of place I think that Democrats are trying to shave off some of the margins that Republicans really, really win by in the rural regions. And Republicans are trying to pick off a few votes from the big advantages that Democrats get from the big cities. Okay, so these campaigns are fighting on territory that is not considered their own. Pennsylvania is a pretty big state. Where did you go first? Yeah, so we went out to join the Democrats in the Kamala Harris operation out in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lancaster is Amish country. It is Amish country. It's historically a Republican stronghold, right? Trump beat Biden there by about 10 points. But Democrats have been making a really big investment in the county this time. It's not just Lancaster, it's across rural parts of Pennsylvania.

But we wanted to see this in action. We're looking for Stella. Uh, you're actually at the right building. We are. So we drove out to Lancaster City, where the Democrats have their headquarters, to meet with Stella Sexton. Um, so I'm a volunteer. I'm the vice chair of the Lancaster County Democrats. Stella told us that Lancaster's so much more than Amish country these days. The economy is booming.

Health care, my neighborhood, a bunch of doctors are moving in. The county has been adding a lot of young, educated people. It's also been a destination for a lot of college-educated retirees. My grandparents, for example, moved here. They're in their 90s. They were lifelong Republicans. They are now Democrats since 2016. And it's the kind of place that Democrats have gotten really close to flipping in the past,

specifically in 2022. The Democrat who was running for governor there lost Lancaster by only 4,000 votes out of more than 200,000 that were cast. The bottom line is the reason the Harris campaign, Biden and now Harris campaign, made this investment here is not necessarily because we're going to flip it this cycle. It may take one more cycle to outright flip the county, but because the pickup in margin that they can get here is very important to winning the state. What did you see there? Yeah, totally. They actually opened up the office for us. This Democrat office wasn't supposed to be open that day. But even so, people kept coming in throughout the day, picking up yard signs, picking up campaign literature.

They were signing up to phone bank, signing up to volunteer. I'm a part-time cashier. I was a teacher for 32 years, so I'm a retired teacher. That included Bobby and Ron Hamilton. They were wearing matching grocery store uniforms from Giant. Did you meet a Giant? Oh, no. It's not far. We're together. and Ron Hamilton. They were wearing matching grocery store uniforms from Giant. Did you meet at Giant? Oh, no. We're together.

And your marriage is still strong? We used to DJ together as a part-time job. DJ? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They were just so cute. They were longtime Democrats. And that was interesting to us

because they said they lived in Mount Joy, which is a conservative suburb. So they're Democrats living in a sea of red. But they told us that this year feels different. They don't feel as lonely. And Ron actually put up a Kamala Harris sign in front of his house the other day. I'm out in front of my house yesterday just walking around.

Car pulls up. Where's your goddamn signs? I says, don't worry about where I got them. Do you want one? And they're little. I said, they're ladies. She said, oh, by all means. I said, well, I'm going to make a special trip all the way down Lancaster just for you,

just to get these signs. I'm going to need them. A lot of people are asking for them. I think a change is happening that I noticed knocking doors is that there were always Democrats around. But I don't know that in our suburban or rural areas that the Democrats realized there were other Democrats as their neighbors. Yes. And I think something that has changed this year in what I'm noticing is that folks aren't embarrassed or fighting it. People are proud to be Democrats and they are proud to

represent that to their neighbors. Exactly. We asked Stella, right, what is it that's causing this change? And she said it's a few reasons. The main reason is like an overarching thing about the Harris and Biden campaign before that. And that's that they said early on, we're going to be competing in these rural areas. We're going to be finding these Democrats that might have felt lonely in the past, might have felt like they weren't being talked to before. And we're going to remind them, hey, we're here, we're coming for you. We're going to knock on your door. And that creates a little bit of a snowball effect, right? One person is suddenly enthusiastic, put up a sign, another person realizes, hey, I'm not alone. And that builds.

All right. So the Democrats are coming out of the closet in Lancaster. But the point is, the Harris campaign has to win over people who did not plan to vote Democrat. Whose job is that? Totally. That's where the door knockers and canvassers come in. They're running this operation on the ground. We met Laura Mazurkiewicz. She's a nurse, early 40s, nice white lady. And it looked like she'd shown up just after work. She was wearing some turquoise scrubs. The energy she had was really gentle, but it was persistent. She is always working the angle. And she told us that winning over voters is kind of like trying to convince a person to stop smoking. You know, you're not trying to get like the patch on their arm that day. You're just like, hey, you know, you do, like, they're in, like, a pre-contemplation state.

You know, so you're just like, hey, I wonder if, you know, I'm just going to mention this, but we're not, you know, I see you in three months, so we'll talk about it then. But I wonder if this could be a thing for you, you know? Ha, all right, so she knows how to convince people. What does she look like when she's trying to convince people to vote for a candidate? So we followed her around. This is so pretty.

Definitely got a lot of steps in. We were keeping a respectable distance. I think what we're going to do is just, like, for the sake, like, let her go first and just say, hey, there's some journalists following us today. And maybe if I just say, like, they're, like I said, like, they're just with a podcast. She knocked on a bunch of doors. Oh, he's not home. So.

And we got some no's, for sure. She said she would decline to answer questions. And we also talked to some folks who said they're voting Democrat. I am Spanish interpreter, so if the campaign needs anything Spanish. And toward the end of the evening, we finally ran into... Just wanted to kind of hear how you're feeling about the election. Oh, well, you won't like it because I think they're both garbage. He thinks they're both garbage!

He's an undecided voter! Undecided voter! His name's Ziggy. Looked like we had caught him just after work. He was an early middle-aged white guy. He told us he was a union electrician and he had his work clothes on him. He was having a drink. He was smoking some cigarettes and said, OK, I'll listen. God bless. So what's his deal? So told us not a fan of Trump. Also wasn't a fan of Biden. You know, companies won't hire somebody that's over retirement age to work in an office. Why the hell are we hiring people to run a country that are that age?

Number one. I absolutely think that Trump shows signs of being a bull can in some ways. Biden was, oh, he was slipping before he even got elected. And he also didn't necessarily have strong feelings about Kamala Harris either. So we got to watch Laura make her soft pitch. That started with talking about Kamala Harris's support for an expanded child tax credit. I want the kid to have food for the next couple years. I think there's enough money in our country to do that.

I believe in kindness. But that didn't entirely land. Don't get me wrong. I'm not some miser that thinks that kids shouldn't eat by any means. But at the same time, a child tax only incentivizes people to have children. And we have more than enough people going on right now.

Vance thinks that the only thing women should be doing is having kids or else there's no point to them. It's a bit ridiculous. And then Laura moved on to January 6th, but that wasn't necessarily a slam dunk either. I hate to say it, like Malcolm X said, at least the enemies that are your enemies to your face, you know who they are. Now, and granted, that's not something... Democracy, we're talking about democracy.

Democracy is not necessarily what we're founded on. We're founded on the republic. And then Laura tried her strongest pitch, which was about abortion rights. I don't know. I'm a nurse. Like, I follow, you know, I work at LGH. Oh, okay. You know, I, you know, I'm just... We worked on the Southward Building, by the way. Oh! We did the electrical for that.

She was talking specifically about the drugs that are used in abortions that some Republicans want to ban. We use those drugs when people have babies. We use those drugs when people have hemorrhages, when they have a hysterectomy because they have cancer. I have pretty good medical knowledge. I do know a lot of coagulants are used for a lot of things. My mom had bone cancer. They had to use all kinds of shit on him that they would normally use for abortion type stuff. Especially stem cell as well, you know?

All right, so she ran through every talking point, and by the end, seemed like the door was cracking a little bit. Did you all walk away thinking, this gentleman is going to vote for Kamala Harris? So the vibe we got was that he might be leaning toward a third party still. But Laura said that's okay, you know? They're going to circle back. This is just the first step. We will circle back to him is just the first step. When we will circle back to him. So he will be circled back to, you know, you put it in the app,

it's undecided. I personally add more notes. Now, Ziggy's the kind of voter that the Kamala Harris campaign's theory of this ground game may end up really mattering. The kinds of folks that you circle back to and slowly convince at the margins to vote at all and to vote for the Democrat. That's going to matter because, it's cliche to say, but every vote counts. But it's not just Democrats that know this. Republicans know every vote counts, too. And they're working their own ground game here. They're coming after votes they wouldn't normally get or might not expect to get. And so they're going into the cities.

And we're going to the cities coming up next. Pennsylvania will be circled back to with Christian Paz. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P.com slash explained, cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC terms and conditions apply.

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You can customize spending limits and restrictions so your employees are empowered to purchase what your business needs. And you can have peace of mind. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained. Cards are issued by Sutton Bank, a member of the FDIC, and terms and conditions do apply. Hey, do you know about the USA? Do you know about... It's Today Explained. We're back with Vox senior politics reporter Christian Paz. Christian, earlier in the show, we were in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish country.

Where are we this time? Yeah, so now we have to move 75 miles east, and we're in North Philly. A couple of weeks ago, Miles and I went out there to meet up with a group called the Black Conservative Federation. So naturally, one of the big stories of this election has been that Trump has been doing better in the polls

with Black and Latino voters this cycle. Specifically, Black voters. He's winning like 10 to 15% of support across polling averages. And that's a pretty big step up from 2016 and 2020. And Trump was doing better before Biden dropped out and Harris became the nominee, but they're still banking on being able to win over more support from Black and other voters of

color. So earlier this month, a Black Voters for Trump tour swung through a few key states, and we decided to meet up with them in Philly. Hi, how you doing? Good, good. We're with Vox News. The tour started at a cheesesteak spot called Max's, and the biggest name there was Congressman Byron Donald. Did you get a cheesesteak?

Oh yeah, I'm about to eat it right now. With onions, provolone, because I don't do that whiz, provolone, with mayo. Donald is from Florida, and he's become one of Trump's main surrogates to Black communities. If you're a Black man, Hispanic man, white man, you're working hard every day, and the money you earn doesn't go as far, that hurts your family, that hurts your kids. So they're looking at this situation saying,

wait a minute, Kamala, you're in charge. You made this inflation happen. Why should I support you? That's number one. Number two, this immigration problem, which is a serious problem, especially in inner cities, people are saying, wait a minute, why are illegal aliens getting food, getting shelter, getting an education while my family and my child is struggling? It's not right and it's not fair. They're looking at that. Trump won only about 7% of the Black vote in Pennsylvania in 2020.

But Donald told us he thinks Trump can double that this year. I think that the floor is 12 to 15%. I think that's the floor today. Why? Because Black people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, man. Christian, we've been hearing this on Today Explained in our reporting all year long. People in poor communities of color honestly feel they were doing better under Donald Trump. Whether or not there's a congressman making the case to them.

But here we have Donald's making that case. And how does this go over to the people he's talking to? Right. It's a pretty compelling case. But at first, it didn't really go over at all because there wasn't anyone around to make that case to. Like, the event wasn't announced until late afternoon the day before, and there really didn't seem like there was an attempt to gather a big crowd or anything. Eventually, the main attraction showed up, a tour bus. What are we seeing? We're seeing this blue bus. It says in red, I'm not with her. Under it in bigger white letters says,

Black voters for Trump. Register to vote today. So we had a lot of people stopping to check the scene because it kind of felt like maybe they hadn't seen a Trump bus or a Trump campaign event like this show up in the neighborhood before. But it wasn't enough to convince these folks to vote for him. You gonna vote? Yeah, I'm gonna vote, but not for this guy.

Miles actually talked to one of these people, a carpenter who went by B. Is there anything that can convince you to vote for Trump? Huh? No, not really. You know, he's a criminal. He's under investigation. You know, he's a criminal. He's under investigation. You know, you've been indicted.

Just like most of my homies around here. You've been indicted. So how could you run for president? So you wouldn't vote for your buddies for president? No, hell no. They're criminals. Why would I do that? Entirely relatable.

All right. So this event is very chaotic. I guess the question was, but was it a success? We did eventually see some Trump-curious folks walk by. That included a woman from the neighborhood named Sheila. She lives in the neighborhood around Max's. And this is one of those neighborhoods that saw a spike in gun violence during the pandemic. She told us she

wasn't sure who she was going to vote for. I just want us to be safe. And I don't want to go through no struggles, no war. And now this time we got to see Byron Donalds make the Republican pitch to her. I've been on a plane with him. I've been in a car with him. I've been on the road with him. You sound like Trump sounds. I don't want any wars. I just want things to make sense. When you get away from all of this, the news and the cameras and all of that, and you talk to him man to man, one on one, that's what he says. She voted for the thing that's caused inflation, that's driven up the cost of everything in our country, whether it's Philly, Detroit, Florida, New York, Chicago, LA, doesn't matter.

She did that. Now, so I look at policies first, not to the open. What you talking about? Leadership. I've seen Kamala. I know Trump. That dude's in charge. Do you think he's going to win?

I think he's going to win. I believe so. I think he's going dude's in charge. Do you think he's going to win? I think he's going to win. I believe so. I think he's going to win Pennsylvania too. But especially because you're thinking like you're thinking. When Russia comes, who you want to go negotiate? A man. And there we also got a little bit of some of the gender dynamics of this election

and the way that Trump is talking to women now. He's kind of assuming this protective role and leaning into a little bit of the gender gap that we have in our politics. Yes, and Ms. Sheila is a good old-fashioned sexist, but she also sounds persuadable. She sounds like she could vote for Donald Trump. Was anyone there completely persuaded? Actually, yeah. Can I share something with y'all too? This is Sheila's daughter, Sherita White. I just want to say, when Trump was in a chair, black people was up. And I want Trump back in the chair because I've been struggling ever since he's been out of the chair. Sherita is exactly the kind of black voter that the Trump campaign is hoping to win.

She was really eager to talk to the media. She was going around sharing her story about how much things have changed since Trump was president. She said that back when Trump was president, she had a good job in health care. She was living in a middle class neighborhood and she had some money because of stimulus checks. But things have gotten really hard since then. She lost her job. She lost her job,

she lost her housing, her husband died, her kid has Crohn's disease, and she's living in a neighborhood of Philly, Kensington, best known for being an open-air fentanyl market. I'm in a neighborhood that I don't want to be in. But if Trump gets his chair, that can change. I can move and everything. But people is not supporting him. They talk so much trash and say this man is ignorant. No, we need somebody like that. How you think you going to reach the people? We ain't going to reach them talking like, yo, let's keep it real.

We need somebody tough and ratchet with their mouth. Trump is that man. I need to survive. And these streets of Philadelphia, it seems like they turned it into New York now. Everything is high here. You know, people can't even afford to get a water. I don't know too much about politics. But the only thing I know, my income changed.

And if I need that man to get in the chair to fix my income, I'm all down. Donald Trump listens to this episode and is like, get me Sherita's number. Is Sherita definitely going to vote? Well, that's the thing. We noticed that the Black Voters for Trump team didn't follow up and get her information. Huh! They didn't log it in an app. Guys!

And they didn't even check to see if she was registered to vote to begin with. And that brings me to a kind of important point, which is this operation, Black Voters for Trump, isn't being formally run by the Trump campaign. It's a Black Conservative Federation operation. And there are lots of these kinds of operations trying to engage voters, but many of the operations aren't being led by the Trump campaign. They're being led by Trump-aligned PACs or outside groups.

They're just now registering voters at Trump rallies, hiring canvassers. And it's not like a formal operation in the way that we saw in Lancaster. There's this reliance on these outside groups to handle the ground game for them. I mean, the Trump campaign didn't even open their first formal campaign office in Pennsylvania until June. Christian, your reporting from Pennsylvania suggests that the Trump team has a very strong message, but a very disorganized ground game. And the Harris team has a very organized ground game. And yet, in the tape you brought back, it's just not clear to me that that message is landing. And that's what we saw in our

reporting. The Trump team's message, what we saw was clean and simple. Life was better five years ago. You had more money in your pocket. And Harris's team has a more complicated message to sell. It's more about policy than feelings. And they've had less time to do it. And that's why they're relying on this ground game. This gamble, that both Trump and Harris are making Trump on vibes and Harris on organizing, it might decide the race. This is Pennsylvania, after all. That was Vox senior politics reporter Christian Paz, along with producer Miles Bryan. Amina El-Sadi edited today's show and Andrea Christen's daughter and Rob Byers engineered.

Laura Bullard and Victoria Chamberlain fact-checked. We will be covering five more swing states before Election Day next week. Arizona. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.