Four things to watch as Pennsylvania’s presidential election results come in

We’ve written for months about the strategies former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are taking to win Pennsylvania. If polls prove true and this is the closest presidential election in history, it could come down to any small shift here.

The gender gap could be the decider if men or women turn out at a higher rate. A move toward or away from Democrats by Black and Latino voters could be determinative.

But one simple way to think about the race for Pennsylvania is to look at the margins in Philadelphia, its suburbs, and the rest of the state.

The bigger Democrats can win in Philadelphia, the easier their path is statewide. There’s a reason Harris spent her final visit to the state on the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps with Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga.

From 1988 to 2012, Philadelphia has given Democratic presidential candidates an increasingly large cushion to offset Republican advantages in more rural parts of the state. In 1988, Democrat Michael Dukakis had a 210,000-vote margin in the city over Republican George H.W. Bush, who won the state and the presidency.

By 2012, the Democratic margin in Philadelphia had grown to 492,000 votes and helped secure the state for Democratic President Barack Obama. Trump succeeded in trimming that margin in the city in 2016 and again in 2020.

But Philadelphia still gave Joe Biden a 471,000-vote head start, an advantage far larger than Trump received in any other county.

Democrats in the city on Tuesday were feeling confident about early turnout numbers in the city that is registered 7:1. Mayor Cherelle Parker predicted Harris’ vote total here could surpass Biden’s in 2020. But the Trump campaign, which has paid more attention to the Democratic city than previous Republican presidential nominees, also saw positive signs in Pennsylvania. A Trump adviser said they’re seeing high turnout in South Philadelphia and Northeast Philadelphia, two of the more Republican parts of the city.

Trump’s playbook this year looked a lot like the path he took in 2016 to ramp up support in rural and exurban parts of the state. The 61 counties outside of Philadelphia, its suburbs, and Allegheny have long been the main vote draws for Republicans but Trump supercharged the margins there.

Mitt Romney received a comfortable 396,000-vote margin in those counties in 2012. Trump more than doubled that margin, racking in 816,000 votes in 2016, and becoming the first Republican to capture Pennsylvania since 1988. He managed to extend that margin by another 14,000 votes in 2020. Trump will almost certainly need to post big numbers again in rural Pennsylvania to have a shot of swinging the state back to the Republican column this year.

He’s focused the majority of his travel to the state on these areas, where the populations are whiter and less college educated.

A strong suburban showing for Kamala Harris could be key for a Democratic victory. Biden’s win in 2020 was in large part credited to the suburbs. He won them by 293,000 votes, a 105,000-vote improvement over Hillary Clinton’s margin in 2016.

Historically a Republican stronghold, Bill Clinton eked out a slim edge in the four suburban counties in 1992 and they’ve been getting bluer ever since. Obama rolled up a margin of over 200,000 votes in the suburbs in 2008. That margin fell in 2012 in Obama’s successful reelection bid, then grew again with Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Harris focused much of her travel in Philadelphia and its suburbs, where she aimed to pull in moderate Republican voters.

Taken together, the question becomes whether Trump can extend his base outside of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. For Democrats, it’s a question of whether the margin in Philadelphia, sizable but weakened slightly in 2020, rebounds or grows.

And there’s Allegheny County, where the Democratic margin also improved by enough for Biden to win Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes in 2020. Both Trump and Harris held rallies in Pittsburgh Monday, capping more than 100 appearances for the two candidates, Biden, and their running mates, in pursuit of the state’s 19 electoral votes.