🍽️ Dining with strangers | Morning Newsletter

Hi, Philly. With two weeks until Election Day, we’re digging into the presidential candidates’ strategies to win Pennsylvania, where Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited a combined 50 times and spent half a billion dollars.

But first: Making friends as an adult is hard. Dinner with strangers with the help of an app could help, according to these Philadelphians.

Let’s get into these stories and more.

— Julie Zeglen (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

P.S. The link to this story was missing in yesterday’s newsletter, so here it is now: State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta is challenging GOP incumbent Auditor General Tim DeFoor in a bid to be Pennsylvania’s top fiscal watchdog. Here’s what to know about the race.

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Living in a new place, friends moving away, a breakup, a demanding work schedule — all can contribute to adults’ social isolation. Amid an American loneliness epidemic, some are turning to apps to find not just love, but friendship.

Or at least, people to have dinner with on a Wednesday night.

🍽️ That’s the goal of Timeleft, which connect strangers for a shared meal. The app is growing in popularity, with more than 275 cities on the platform. Philadelphia was added earlier this year.

🍽️ In Philly, there’s even a spinoff group chat where dozens of users plan their own meetups to build connections beyond the dinner table.

🍽️ “It’s a way for me to share food with people I would have never met before,” said one local super user — seriously, they’ve attended 15 dinners since joining the app in June — who has found real friends through Timeleft.

Reporter Hira Qureshi has written before about young Philadelphians trying to navigate social isolation IRL. For her latest, she joined a Timeleft meal to find out: Is dining with strangers the cure for loneliness?

Pennsylvania’s “swingiest” status prevails: The money and time Harris and Trump have spent in the battleground state far surpasses that of any other, according to an Inquirer analysis of the last year of campaigning.

Money: Combined, their campaigns have spent more than $538 million on advertising here — 52% more than in Michigan, where they spent the next highest amount.

Time: The candidates have come to the state nearly 50 times this election cycle. Counting their running mates and President Joe Biden, that total jumps to 90. The latest visits were Harris’ Monday event in Malvern, where she appealed to conservatives alongside Republican Liz Cheney, and Trump’s Sunday stop in Feasterville, where he pretended to work at a McDonald’s.

The result: So far, it’s all added up to essentially a dead heat, with Trump squeaking past Harris in recent polling averages.

Politics reporter Julia Terruso breaks down how these figures translate to what Pennsylvanians are seeing on their TV screens and in their mailboxes.

A pair of farmers in Western Pennsylvania just won the coveted “Grower of the Year” award for their massive pumpkins. About how much do the three winning gourds weigh together?

A) 400 pounds, as much as a lion

B) 2,200 pounds, as much as a giraffe

C) 5,500 pounds, as much as a hippo

D) 7,700 pounds, as much as an elephant

Think you know? Check your answer.

📮 Dropping off: Mail ballots in one of 45 locations across Philadelphia.

🦃 Getting paid $2,500 to eat: Wawa Gobblers, courtesy a ... rental car company.

⚖️ Considering: The laws that keep millions of Americans with felony records from voting.

A South Philly restauranteur will compete in this Food Network show run by Guy Fieri.

Hint: 🛒

SMOGGY SURGERY ACE

Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Anthony McIntosh, who solved Monday’s anagram: Lisa Blunt Rochester. The Philly-native U.S. representative is poised to become Delaware’s first Black female senator.

🪞 One last interactive thing: The Portal video art installation goes live in Love Park today, allowing real-time connections with people in Ireland, Poland, and Lithuania. Eagle-eyed Philadelphians noticed a crack at the bottom of the screen, but for once, it actually wasn’t our fault.

Thanks for starting your day with The Inquirer. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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