Fox News and the Associated Press projected a win for Donald Trump in the battleground state of Pennsylvania early Wednesday morning, a victory which essentially blocks Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency.
Trump trailed Clinton in Pennsylvania during the weeks leading up to Election Day. While the former secretary of state’s lead narrowed in the final weeks of the election, TPM’s PollTracker Average had Clinton leading Trump by 3.1 points before polls closed on Tuesday.
In the run-up to the fall campaign season, Trump stepped up his rhetoric about a “rigged” election, telling voters in an August speech that Clinton would only win Pennsylvania “if the cheating goes on.”
He asked voters to “go down to certain areas to watch and study and make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times.”
In June, Trump delivered a speech on jobs in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where he promised to “make America wealthy again.” The majority of Trump’s outreach in the state focused on economic change and the renegotiation of trade deals.
Speaking to a group of evangelical leaders in August, Trump acknowledged that he was slipping in polls of the Keystone State, saying that it was a “little further” but suggesting that he would win “because of the miners.”
Visiting the state in September, he broke with the GOP in an appearance with eldest daughter Ivanka Trump where he proposed six weeks of paid maternity leave for new mothers.
When Trump won the Republican nomination, experts noted that his attitudes toward women could alienate suburban female voters in Philadelphia, who have previously voted reliably for GOP candidates. Trump went on to win Pennsylvania despite new comments which came to light over the course of the campaign, including his remarks calling former Miss Universe Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” and the “Access Hollywood” video where Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals.
