Six ways living in a swing state is like living an election fever dream in 2024

With the outsized attention swing states receive and the influence they have in U.S. presidential elections, it’s a testament to the character of the residents of those states that we haven’t let it get to our heads or rubbed it in California and New York’s faces.

How often is Wisconsin more popular than California, and how often does Pennsylvania get top billing over New York? Just a few months a year, every four years. And while it’s nice to know we matter, heavy is the head that wears the crown and frankly, we are tired, y’all. It’s exhausting being the center of attention.

During the months leading up to this election, it’s seemed like the only states in the country are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as candidates, canvassers, celebrities, pollsters, and politicos crisscrossed them by plane, train, and automobile and set up camp within them. Especially Pennsylvania.

For those who don’t live in a swing state, life may not have changed a lot in the last few weeks, but for those of us who do, as the election has neared, daily life has only become more strange and unpredictable. You never know if Robert De Niro might show up at your Eagles tailgate or if a 40-foot-tall naked statue of former President Donald Trump might appear in your neighborhood.

Here are six ways living in a swing state is like living in an election fever dream:

1. At any moment, your 20-minute commute can become a two-hour drive home, depending on what candidate or politician’s motorcade is in town clogging up the roadways like they own the place. What’s that you say? You’ve got to get to little Timmy’s big soccer game on the streets your taxes pay to upkeep? Too bad, Trump wants to make some fries at a McDonald’s.

2. Watching TV becomes scary, not because of the programming but because of the content and tone of the political ads. I’m pretty sure some of the spots I’ve seen were paid for by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse they’re so bleak. When I see a commercial about painful sores these days, I don’t know if it’s for a pharmaceutical drug or a politician warning of the onset of the Book of Revelation if they don’t win.

3. Celebrities descend on your state in droves like they moved the Cannes Film Festival out of France and put it in your backyard (hope you hired craft services!). In Philly, a celebrity sighting usually means getting to see the Phanatic or Gritty in the wild, but in the last few weeks alone, Stevie Wonder, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tessa Thompson, Common, John Legend, Martin Sheen, Spike Lee, Alicia Keys, and Lin-Manuel Miranda have all stumped for Harris in Philly while Elon Musk, Danica Patrick, and Lee Greenwood have appeared at Trump rallies across Pennsylvania.

When Bill Nye the Science Guy held a rally last week at LOVE Park, I wondered on social media who would be next in this cavalcade of celebrities to come to Philly. I said I hoped for LeVar Burton.

Five days later, Burton stumped for Harris at an event in University City. No, I’m not psychic, and despite my prediction and the fact I own Reading Rainbow and Star Trek: the Next Generation T-shirts, I did not get an invite. As a swing stater, you just start to feel these things in your bones.

But what I didn’t predict — and I don’t know if anybody could have — was Robert De Niro showing up at an Eagles tailgate at Lincoln Financial Field Sunday. Reality has gotten weird around Philly that movies filmed here, like Silver Linings Playbook, are bleeding into real life. At this point, if kids start telling us they see dead people, we should believe them.

4. Helicopters seem to be constantly buzzing overhead, even more than usual. I don’t know if these are news choppers covering political rallies or security choppers keeping an eye on candidates. But either way, even though I know they’re not intended for the average resident, it still makes the entire state feel like Ray Liotta in the helicopter scene from Goodfellas ( “These helicopters, I’m telling ya, they’re following me, Karen!” ~ all of Pennsylvania).

5. Strangers knock at your door unannounced wanting to chat, like we’re living in Good Times or The Honeymooners, but instead of asking for a cup of sugar, they ask for your vote. I know people who wouldn’t answer the door for their own family unless the visit was planned three weeks out and confirmed via text in advance, so dealing with many unsolicited door knocks these days is unusual.

Also unusual is having 13 strangers and/or bots text me about voting or attending rallies in the weekend leading up to Election Day. I’ve cut off men for sending fewer texts than that in a weekend.

6. You never know what foolishness is just around the corner. In the days leading up to and after an election, reality can feel like living in an absurdist play concocted by Beckett or Ionesco, where a political press conference is held at a landscaping business near a sex shop and crematorium, and a 40-foot tall naked sculpture of a former president is hung from a crane along a busy avenue.