From TPM Reader AB …
About Pennsylvania.
Like you, I think Pennsylvania will be key to the election, and I am not sure how it will go. I live in Western PA coal country, and a number of people have noted fewer Trump signs. That is true, but I think a lot of the non-sign people will still vote for Trump. A grudging vote counts just as much as an enthusiastic one. I also don’t think there is anything Harris can do to win them over. What they really like about Trump is his sense of grievance, and his whining. They don’t want policies to bring back the golden days when coal miners all had a gold plated Rolls Royce.
Lots of people have pointed out that elections are not usually about which policies the voter thinks will make stuff better for them or the country, and more which candidate they identify with. They identify with Trump, and pointing out his increasingly irrational speeches or his shitty policies will not help, especially not when you are asking them to accept Harris. It is really the whining, I think, that matters most. Like Trump, they have no real ideas about how to bring back their imagined old America, but they do like to whine (Trump’s go-to move, and the one thing a traditional American man would never do). I have noted, maybe, a bit more of the angry pro-Trump despair I remember from 2016, when a lot of people were convinced that Hillary would win, but were going to cast angry votes for Trump (and vandalize my lawn signs) anyway.
It is of course possible that turnout will be down here, and that Pittsburgh and Philly will provide enough D votes to win the state, but my guess is that Real America PA will stick with Trump at about the levels they did before.
