Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s strategy to win Pennsylvania has spanned 50 stops and $500 million in ads

From Allentown to Erie, mailboxes are bursting with campaign literature like trash cans at the end of a music festival.

Television, TikTok, and sports talk radio broadcast a barrage of blunt ads and Pennsylvanians’ commutes are increasingly snarled by candidates headed to a McDonald’s or a historical site, or a podium in another swingy part of this internationally-known battleground state.

The 2024 presidential election moved into Pennsylvania and never left, an Inquirer analysis of the last year of campaigning shows.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and their allies, have dumped more than $538 million in advertising dollars to reach Pennsylvania voters.

That’s the most of any swing state and about $185 million more than the next closest battleground, Michigan, according to ad tracker AdImpact.

The presidential election since January has drawn the top candidates and their running mates to the state 76 times — 90 including visits President Joe Biden made as the nominee — with most of those visits occurring since the start of August.

And with 13 days to go, it’s all added up to a dead heat.

Harris and Trump have spent the bulk of their campaign money and resources in Pennsylvania, aware that the state, with its 19 electoral college votes, is the key to the White House.

Their strategies here reflect their different paths to victory but collectively amount to an unprecedented investment in one state. Add in money spent on Senate and Congressional races here and election spending is approaching $1 billion in the state.

Trump has spent most of his time in the state’s Rust Belt areas which are home to his white, working-class base.

Eighteen out of Trump’s 25 campaign stops to the state have been outside of Philadelphia, its collar countries, and Pittsburgh. In recent months, he’s rallied in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton in the Northeast, and Kittanning and Indiana in the West.

“This isn’t a new strategy,” Pennsylvania’s former GOP chair Rob Gleason said. “This is how he got elected in 2016 and almost in 2020.”

Gleason said priority No. 1 was to increase turnout in less populous counties to offset weakness in Philadelphia’s collar counties.

Trump senior adviser Tim Murtaugh said the campaign’s closing argument — that Trump will fix the economy and the border and that Harris would be an extension of the Biden administration — appeals to the base Trump has been focused on.

“The blue-collar Trump voter, the union member Trump voter, the person who is concerned about the border Trump voter, the person concerned about his job in fracking, energy or manufacturing,” Murtaugh said. “All of those people are Pennsylvania Trump voters.”

For most of the summer, the Trump campaign focused on big rallies aiming to hype up a fervent base and to draw out less-engaged voters who may only vote in presidential elections – or who have even skipped some of those in the past.

“If you can get 30,000 people to come see you, those people are reliably gonna vote for you,” Gleason said. “It’s a pain in the ass to go to those rallies, you stand in line, you get rained on. But then all those people, they go home and there’s 2-3 more people hearing about the rally.”

With just weeks to the election, though, Trump’s strategy is pivoting slightly toward persuadable voters in the center, including in the vote-rich blue suburbs.

“It’s about trying to get those … undecided or not voting for Trump or Harris,” said RNC committeeman Andy Reilly, who lives in Democratic-leaning Delaware County. “And get people who swing their vote by making the case you’ll be better off economically with Republicans and rebutting claims that Republicans are crazy.”

Democrats think so much early focus outside of population centers could wind up hurting Trump. His visit to Montgomery County was his first public event in the Philadelphia suburbs of the cycle with two weeks to go, though Vance has made several stops in the suburbs. The stop in Oaks, where a town hall turned into 40 minutes of DJing, didn’t net positive media attention.

“I think Trump’s problem is that he’s deluded himself into believing that he won in 2020,” Democratic strategist Eric Stern said. “That’s why Trump is just going back to the well. But for those of us who recognize he lost, we recognize it only goes so far.”

Conversely, about three-quarters of Harris’ appearances in Pennsylvania have been in Philadelphia, its suburbs, or Allegheny County, together home to 44% of the state’s registered voters. But Harris and Walz have also made stops in Lancaster, York, Bethlehem, Wilkes-Barre, Volant, and Adams Township in the western part of the state.

“The strategy has always been, throw the kitchen sink at campaigning everywhere and not taking any voters for granted,” Harris senior adviser Brendan McPhillips said. “Our unofficial motto is go everywhere, talk to everyone.”

Harris needs to cobble together a coalition like Biden did to win statewide, and has split her time between the Rust Belt areas where Biden siphoned support away from Trump and the cities and suburbs that she needs to put up big numbers in to win. The campaign sees the suburbs as its mini “blue wall” in Pennsylvania to limit Trump’s path to victory here.

“She’s not repeating the mistake the Hillary Clinton campaign made in 2016 when they only went to either heavily Democratic parts of Philadelphia to boost turnout or outer suburban areas,” said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia Democrat. “The Harris campaign has continued with that Biden 2020 playbook of basically going anywhere and everywhere.”

Harris and Walz have collectively made 12 visits to Allegheny, nine to Philadelphia, and three to the Philadelphia suburbs. Allegheny, which is home to Pittsburgh as well as whiter affluent suburbs, has about 250,000 fewer registered Democrats than Philadelphia but delivered just 17,000 fewer votes in the statewide race last year than Philadelphia.

“For however much focus there is on the national press in Philadelphia, the fact of the matter is that Allegheny is probably more critical for their success here,” said Stern, who is based in Pittsburgh. “She needs to bank votes here in ways that Democrats 20 years ago needed to bank in Philadelphia.”

Harris has made six trips outside of Allegheny, Philadelphia, or the collar counties, as she aims to appeal to Republican voters. Walz, who has focused on rural parts of the state, had spent the majority of his stumping here outside of the population centers.

Supporters have applauded that tactic. Harris’ critics see it as a possible sign of concern in the state which has remained stubbornly deadlocked.

“You don’t go asking Republicans to vote for you, go on Fox News, if you’re not starting to panic,” Gleason, the former GOP party chair said.

Harris’ campaign has invested slightly more on the airwaves than Trump’s. Since January, more than $123.7 million has been spent in the state by Biden for President and Harris for President, which inherited Biden’s war chest. Democratic PACs and issue groups have spent an additional $171 million on pro-Harris ads airing through Nov 5, according to the ad tracking site AdImpact.

Trump’s campaign has spent half of what Harris’ operation has in the state — $52.5 million — but that’s been supplemented by super PACs and issue groups dumping $191.2 million into getting Trump elected in Pennsylvania.

In all, Democrats have spent $294.7 million and Republicans $243.7 million in the state, a combined $538 million figure that leads all states in spending, with Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona following.

Harris and allied groups have outspent Trump on streaming, cable, digital, and radio ads, while Trump has spent more on broadcast buys.

The messaging runs the gamut, but Trump’s campaign has invested heavily in ads portraying Harris’ support for LGBTQ rights in a negative light and Democrats have put Trump’s anti-abortion record front and center.

“For you and me, every time we turn on Hulu it’s how Kamala Harris is for ‘They/Them’ and Donald Trump wants to take away abortion rights,” Stern said. “That message has sunk through for me but the crazy thing is there are voters who are just tuning in now and so frankly, it’s … what they have to do.”

Spending in the pricey Philadelphia market leads the way, followed by Pittsburgh, Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, Wilkes-Barre-Scranton, and then Johnstown-Altoona. Even in that smallest market, Johnstown, the Trump and Harris campaigns have booked a collective $30 million in air, streaming, or radio time.

As paid advertisements become noise, the Trump and Harris campaigns are turning to alternative media, like podcasts, to reach voters.

There’s a risk, strategists on both sides say, that the ad warfare by each side starts canceling out.

“Bluntly, I believe both teams have spent too much money in Pennsylvania,” GOP strategist Charlie Gerow said.

It’s much harder to track mail advertisements, but those are piling up on doorsteps from Chestnut Hill to Chambersburg. Gerow said he got 21 pieces of mail in one week – and he’s a registered Republican, likely to receive less targeted mail than an independent.

“That mail is very expensive to produce,” Gerow said. “Well over a buck a piece and I don’t think much of that’s cutting through at this point. It’ll depend much more on the ground game.”

Despite some Philly Democratic hand-wringing last week, Harris’ campaign has deployed a full-court press of canvassing and rallies aimed at motivating voters to turn out, likely to continue through to Election Day.

Last weekend, thousands of canvassers fanned out around the state for Democrats including surrogates like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in Reading, model and TV host Padma Lakshmi in Montgomery County, and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker in West Philadelphia.

The Harris campaign has been operating 50 offices in the state, including 16 in counties Trump won by double digits, and employs 450 staffers here.

“All the organizing we’ve been doing for months is designed to ramp up and peak at this time when voters are most tuned in,” McPhillips, from the Harris campaign, said. “They’re getting the most touches from a variety of platforms, ads on TV, interacting with something on their phone or laptop… You have to build that early and it cannot be replicated or purchased or wished into fruition out of thin air at the 11th hour.”

The Trump campaign has not said how many offices or paid staffers it has on the ground in the state.

“Our turnout operation is clearly working as we are seeing very significant improvements in our share of the early vote,” Murtaugh said. “We’ll let the scoreboard speak for itself.”

Local Republicans say it’s more robust than in 2020 and 2016.

“2020, it wasn’t as good,” Trump supporter and Pennsylvania elector Jim Worthington said. “2016 was the Wild Wild West. …This time, it’s a well-oiled machine.”

But there are warning signs, too. Elon Musk’s America PAC has been doing canvassing for the campaign, with uneven success, according to several reports.

Musk also launched a series of town halls and a $1 million a day giveaway – the legality of which is under question – to try and boost interest in voting in the election.

The Trump campaign described Musk’s efforts as supplemental to its independent get-out-the-vote operation being coordinated with the RNC and state parties.

Reilly, from the RNC, acknowledged turnout operations tend to favor Democrats, who have traditionally canvassed with unions and issue groups like Planned Parenthood, but he pointed to four years of registration gains for Republicans, which now helps the party communicate with and turn out those voters.

Reilly also said the GOP has wisely targeted less-engaged voters with messaging focused on the economy. (Democrats note the unreliability of that strategy though, given less engaged voters are also the least likely to turn out.)

In a race that could come down to the margins, Gleason said Republicans are also doing a better job of tracking unreturned mail ballots, something Democrats have a four-year advantage on organizing around.

Both sides predicted the final days will look a lot like the last six months — but on steroids.

“A one-point game in sports is like a one-point election — when you’re talking about a margin that close there are 100 little things, any one of which you could point to and say that is ‘the difference,’” Boyle said. “So she needs to make sure she shows up in places like Erie, Washington Crossing, Johnstown, etc.”

Trump will also log more miles here in the final days, as Pennsylvanians wait to see whose $200 million-plus investment pays off.

“You win Pennsylvania, you’re the president,” Worthington said. “If you want to get more specific, if you run close in Bucks, and you diminish the difference in the vote total in the Southeast, he wins Pennsylvania. It’s as simple as that.”

Data reporter Lizzie Mulvey and graphics editor John Duchneskie contributed to this article.