Does Kamala Harris Have a “Scranton Problem”? Trump Is Counting on It

📅 They are there 80 days until election day.

In this edition:

—Julia Terruso, Aseem Shukla, Sean Collins Walsh, Katie Bernard, Fallon Roth, Oona Goodin-Smith, pa2024@inquirer.com

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Is Kamala Harris Actually You have a problem with Scranton?

Scranton’s favorite son is no longer on the ballot in a swing state, and some Republicans see that as an opportunity.

This weekend, Trump heads to Wilkes-Barre, Scranton’s sister city in northeastern Pennsylvania, where he hopes to attract more of the white, non-college-educated, working-class voters who helped him win the state in 2016. President Joe Biden won enough votes from that group in 2020 to facilitate elect him to the White House.

“[Vice President] Kamala Harris can try to claim a lot of new things about her biography and her record,” former Trump communications director and Pennsylvania native Tim Murtaugh told us. “But I doubt she can claim to be from Scranton.”

Biden loyalists in Scranton he expressed some concern when he withdrew from the race about how Harris will fare in the city and in nearby, important Rust Belt cities.

But so far, there’s little evidence that Harris will have a stern problem in the Northeast. Early polls show her doing better than Biden in the region, and similar regions. Her support is growing among independent voters, a key group in counties like Luzerne and Lackawanna.

“Everybody is saying, ‘This district is going to be worse for Harris than it is for Biden,’” said a Pennsylvania GOP strategist, wary of sounding alarm bells. “And I’m saying there is no … district in America that is going to be worse for Harris than Biden.”

The Northeast also became more diverse, and Harris showed early signs of growing appeal to Democrats among black and younger voters, which could offset other potential losses.

Scranton residents who traveled to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention said they were motivated to encourage their region to vote for Harris — even if interest in the Electric City may fade.

“Joe Biden passed the torch to Kamala Harris,” said Andrew Cutillo, a DNC delegate from Scranton. “Now Scranton passes the torch to Oakland.”

The Latest

💸 The fentanyl overdose epidemic is becoming increasingly important to voters. And in the closely watched U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, it has become a key issue — with investments in a Chinese fentanyl company in the spotlight.

🔵 In the three weeks since Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Harris, Pennsylvania has seen a surge in Democratic registrations — a possible signal of growing enthusiasm within the party.

🏡 Election officials will play a key role in ensuring that November’s elections run smoothly — especially in Philadelphia, the state’s largest city that will decide the president. That’s why, when one of the city’s election officials quit her job last month, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker visited her home to stop her.

🗳️ A Montgomery County man has been charged in a rare case of voter fraud after voting in three counties in Pennsylvania and Florida. A Philadelphia official said the case shows the system works and “when irregularities and fraud occur, they are investigated and detected.”

🤝 He may have lost the presidential election, but polls show Gov. Josh Shapiro is still the most popular politician in the state.

⏩ Moving on to the 2025 election: About a half-dozen people are already thinking about challenging Larry Krasner for Philadelphia District Attorney, and one person has already registered several campaign-style domains.

Diving into data

🎤 This week we hand over the microphone to our colleague, data reporter Aseem Shukla to talk about five types of seats expected to win in pennsylvania in november:

🪑 So you want to win Pennsylvania. Pull up a chair.

You say Pennsylvania is a swing state. I say it’s a swing state. While some voters are moving left, others are moving right — or staying home. Who wins it depends on which of these subtle, balanced trends will prove beneficial to them.

We can’t see into every voter’s mind, but we can look at trends on the ground. Let’s divide the state into five groups, based on population density, ethnicity and education:

🔑 Rural areasleast densely populated

🔑 Suburban areasnext in population density

🔑 White working class urban areaswhere voters are mostly white and most don’t have a bachelor’s degree

🔑 White, educated urban areaswhere voters are mostly white and mostly college educated,

🔑 Urban areas inhabited by non-white peoplewhere the majority of people are black, Latino and/or Asian in cities large and small

These groups are listed in order of increasing Democratic votes. But there’s a catch — they’re moving in different directions than you might expect. Check out this chart, where the arrows show whether a group won more votes for Joe Biden (left) or Donald Trump (right) in 2020 compared to 2016.

While suburbs and whiter parts of cities gave Joe Biden more votes in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, both rural areas and cities with a majority of nonwhites — which have lower rates of college education than the rest of the state — lost Democratic support.

If these trends continue in 2024, and if Democratic losses in urban and rural areas outweigh gains elsewhere, the odds could favor Trump. If losses remain limited, Harris’ prospects could improve.

Stock up

📈 Democrats in Philadelphia Suburbs: The Philadelphia suburbs have become a stronghold of Democratic votes — even in the outer, more suburban areas of the suburbs, which have moved left more slowly than other parts of the region. There are a number of rapidly growing communities in Chester and Montgomery counties where population growth has benefited Democrats almost exclusively. This is particularly evident in East Brandywine Parish. Decades ago, the area was largely rural. The influx of new development has brought self-described “city people” to the borough. And they bring their politics with them.

Stocks down

📉 X Spaces: Elon Musk’s tortuous conversation with Trump on X Spaces got off to a very, very rocky start Monday night. The call — in which Trump discussed the attempted coup and his promise to return to Butler — started 42 minutes late after users trying to get into the Space were greeted with the message: “🙉 This space is unavailable.” Those who managed to get into the Space were greeted with seemingly endless lo-fi techno music while they waited. Musk said the delay was caused by “massive DDOS attack”, which is malicious in nature, but one X employee told the Verge that there is ’99 percent’ chance Musk was lying.

💰 Campaign Money

From the land “EAGLES” in the east to Terrible Towel Territory out west, in Pennsylvania, there aren’t many places where people hold New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft in high regard. The campaign headquarters of Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick may be an exception, according to a former Inquirer political reporter Jonathan Tamari drew attention to XKraft donated $24,500 in February to support McCormick’s effort to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey. McCormick may need that financial help. A recent Quinnipiac Poll has him in the ranking of likely voters by … 🦅 8 steering.

📸 Scenes from the election campaign

What will we watch next?

➡️ This weekend in Pennsylvania, Trump is heading to the northeastern part of the state, while Harris and her vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are touring western Pennsylvania by bus.

➡️ Will the September 10 presidential debate actually take place at Independence Hall, since Walz and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance are planning their debate for October?

➡️ Will a New York judge grant Trump’s request to delay sentencing in his criminal bribery case until after the election?

➡️ What will happen at the DNC next week as Parker, Shapiro, Casey, Rep. Joanna McClinton and other Pennsylvania Democratic Party policymakers and activists head to Chicago.

That’s all for this week. Head over to inquirer.com/politics for our latest coverage of the candidates’ weekend visits, as well as Julia and Sean being on site at the DNC next week. See you in your inbox next Friday. 👋