'I feel very powerful and very scared': Pennsylvanians under pressure to vote in key swing state | US elections 2024

To celebrate his anniversary this year, Phil Haegele stood in a long line at a polling station with his wife on a warm fall afternoon, waiting to cast his vote for Donald Trump.

It was the first time that Haegele, a 47-year-old plumber, voted early. But he had heard on the radio that a judge had extended early voting in Bucks County, a battleground in southeastern Pennsylvania where he lives. He was then bombarded with “probably 50 text messages” urging him to vote, which he did.

“Many of the news outlets we follow said they were trying to get as many Trump supporters to vote early to ward off as much fraud as possible,” he said.

Haegele's decision to spend his anniversary waiting to vote underscores how much is at stake when it comes to every vote in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most valuable of this fall's seven swing states.

Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes – the most of any swing state – and the path to getting 270 electoral votes and winning the election is more complicated for the candidate who doesn't win it. Both Trump and Kamala Harris have crisscrossed the state in the final week of the campaign, holding dueling rallies about an hour apart on Monday in the Lehigh Valley, one of the most competitive parts of the state. Harris dedicated the entire final election day to Pennsylvania, making four stops in the state.

“I'm pretty scared,” said Sonny Berenson, 20, a student at Muhlenberg College who attended Harris' rally there Monday. “This is probably the most contentious election in American history and we live in a state that can decide it. So I feel very powerful and very scared, but of course I hope and pray that Kamala wins.”

Danielle Shackelford, 68, a Pennsylvania Lottery employee from Allentown, sat a few rows away in the stands and said she was optimistic Harris would win. She said abortion is a top issue for her and that there are many women who quietly support Harris on the issue.

“They're fighting with everything in them to fight what's being put out there,” she said. “What Trump did, he unleashed the wrath of women.”

Both campaigns are vying for votes from Pennsylvania's sizeable Latino population. There are more than 500,000 Latino voters in the state and the Trump campaign spent the last week trying to shore up that support after a comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” at a rally.

Voters at one of his rallies in Allentown didn't really believe the joke would hurt his chances in the state. Some said they thought the joke was in bad taste, but it wouldn't affect people's choices.

According to NPR, a staggering $1.2 billion was spent on political advertising in the state, more than any swing state. It was the first time in a cycle that spending in a single U.S. state had exceeded $1 billion, the outlet reported. The state's highways are littered with billboards for both candidates. Lawn signs and billboards are almost evenly spaced, with houses next to each other and across the street supporting different candidates. Despite all this spending, polls show the race is even.

There were also heated legal disputes over whether postal votes should be rejected for technical reasons. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in late October that the state could not accept undated mail-in ballots. Then the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that those whose absentee ballots were rejected because they forgot to put them in a secrecy sleeve could cast a provisional vote on Election Day.

Trump used alarmist rhetoric in the final week of the campaign to reiterate what has been clear for months: He will refuse to accept a loss in Pennsylvania or other states he could lose. On Sunday, he told his supporters in Lilitz that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House.

He also falsified an investigation into potentially fraudulent voter registration applications in Lancaster County to falsely suggest that fraudulent votes were cast. While officials there are investigating suspicious registration forms, they have not said any illegal votes were cast.

Read more of the Guardian's coverage of the 2024 US election

“I think it’s going to be a blast,” Trump said. “I know they will cheat again.” There was no evidence of cheating in Pennsylvania in 2020.

After years of opposing early voting and mail-in voting, Republicans have encouraged their supporters to vote early. It's a message that resonated with voters like Rene Diaz Jr., a 36-year-old machinist who waited about 45 minutes to vote in Bucks County on Halloween.

“In 2020, there were certain polling places where supposedly the water pipes were broken and all these things happened and people couldn't vote,” he said. During the counting of ballots in 2020, a water main broke at State Farm Arena in Atlanta; it didn't stop anyone from voting.

Diaz said his main issues in this election were the economy, foreign policy and the border.

“We are drowning in so much debt that we should not be helping to fight two wars and not sending countries to two wars and helping to fund other programs,” he said. “I have children and it is important that my children can grow up with the life I lead.

“You choose not to help our own country,” said his wife, Amanda Diaz, 31, who stood in line wearing a Halloween costume.

Elizabeth Slaby, an 81-year-old from Allentown, came to Harris' Allentown rally at 6 a.m. Monday with her son and grandson. She said she had been a Republican for more than 50 years but changed her registration five days after Jan. 6.

Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by just over 88,000 votes in 2020, unseating the state from Trump. His victory offers a roadmap for what Harris must do to carry the state – driving huge turnout in the Democratic-leaning Philadelphia suburbs, trimming Trump's margins in Republican areas and winning back working-class voters in the state's northeast.

That's why the battle for Pennsylvania is being fought in places like Luzerne County, a former industrial hub in the northeastern part of the state. Barack Obama carried the county by nearly five points in 2012; Trump won it in 2016 by almost 20 points. Four years later, Biden did slightly better there, surpassing Clinton's performance by six points. Democrats are unlikely to flip the district, but they hope to further narrow Trump's margin of victory.

Romilda Crocamo, the county manager, said she was concerned about the violence on Election Day. During the early voting period, she had to call a sheriff to the election office to break up a dispute. One of the poll workers was called a racist insult and another was spat at. The county has erected new barricades outside the election office and all other government employees will work elsewhere on Election Day.

On the Sunday before the election, a group of about a dozen canvassers gathered at a small Action Together Northeast Pennsylvania office in downtown Wilkes-Barre, the county seat, to knock on doors. Jessica Brittain, the group's organizing and communications director, went over a script that canvassers could use for the doors. “We know that abortion is one of the biggest motivators in all the races we have worked on this year,” she said.

One of the people on screen was Gary Williams, a 73-year-old retired banker who lives just outside the city. That morning, he said, his Harris Walz lawn sign was stolen for the second time. He said he had already issued a replacement.

“I want a president who obviously tells the truth and makes decisions based on facts,” he said.

Later Sunday afternoon, Jimmy Conroy, a 27-year-old who leads Action Together's canvassing, flitted between homes on Wilkes-Barre's south side. Many of the doors were already filled with flyers from various candidates. The day before, Conroy said someone called the police about a canvass (the officers escaped without incident).

Conroy has been knocking on doors in Pennsylvania for years, and one of the things that has stood out to him most about this election is the age difference among Trump and Harris supporters.

Younger people are “either undecided or leaning towards Trump”.

At Harris' rally Monday in Allentown, 68-year-old Carmen Bell said she was optimistic about the results.

“I can't allow myself to lean into the negative because it's so exaggerated. I have a feeling she'll get there, and it won't be as close as it looks,” she said.