LANCASTER, Pa.—Nazir Mbami is a 17-year-old black man and Army National Guard recruit who will turn 18 by Election Day. On Oct. 20, he donned a red “Make America Great Again” hat and attended a town hall event with former President Donald Trump in Lancaster—pledging to cast his first-ever vote for the Republican presidential nominee in this year’s election.
Mbami complained about recent comments made by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. “She went on ‘The View’ and said there was nothing that she would change about how Joe Biden ran his [administration],” Mbami said.
“We had four years Donald Trump and four years Joe Biden, where we [can] literally compare and contrast where and when the other person went wrong … showing me that if I don’t like [Biden] now, then I probably won’t like [Harris] in the future.”
Mbami is an independent voter in Pennsylvania, a state whose 19 electoral college votes make it the most influential battleground state in the 2024 election. Voters like Mbami matter most to Harris and Trump’s campaigns, because they could determine who wins the election.
On average, polls in Pennsylvania show that Trump has between a 0.4 and 0.8 percentage point lead over Harris, highlighting that every vote in Pennsylvania counts.
The Epoch Times interviewed dozens of voters across the state to gauge the trends that will affect the state’s results.
Different Problems, Different Solutions
When asked about the major policy issues affecting their choices, Pennsylvania voters supporting Harris and Trump differed greatly in their responses. Trump supporters reported the state of the economy and illegal immigration as their top issues, while Harris backers emphasized abortion, individual rights, and personal character as their primary considerations.
None of the voters in either group spoke of these issues in similar terms, indicating a wide gap in perception between Harris’s and Trump’s coalitions ahead of the election.
“This is not an ‘issue election’ for me. This is [about] freedom. It’s about the Constitution. One side wants to take away freedoms, and the other side does not,” said Mike Reilly, a retired store manager in Erie, who is supporting Harris.
“This is not about policy for me, this election,” he told The Epoch Times at a rally featuring Harris on Oct. 15.
“Decency, honesty, character,” said Collis Allen Jr., a truck driver and U.S. Navy veteran, when asked by The Epoch Times why he supports Harris. “[Trump] refuses to accept the fact that he lost the 2020 election.”
“[Abortion] is huge. I think women are going to decide this election, and we don’t want to go back. We deserve our rights,” said Heather Ulmer, a schoolteacher in Erie backing Harris. “She’s the one that’s going to help us.”
Trump supporters had other ideas.
“The prices have just gone up. The prices for food, gas, electric—the bills. It’s just hard to make it. I just don’t know how people do it in a single family,” said Dana Willis, an industrial worker from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, who, with her husband Shane Cheshire, attended Trump’s rally in Latrobe on Oct. 19.
“We have two children, and we both work. It’s kind of hard to balance things out,” she said.
“[Trump] wants to save the steel industry. Right now, we’re up for sale. Nippon Steel is looking to buy us. I don’t know. [My] future is unknown,” said Matthew Kantoris, a unionized steelworker for U.S. Steel in Westmoreland County who spoke approvingly of Trump’s proposal for high tariffs on imports.
“If you buy steel from overseas, and it’s going to cost the same with the tariffs than it would be to buy from an American company, [then] a lot of companies would buy American because it’s better quality,” Kantoris said.
“We’ve had four years of Donald Trump and four years of Joe Biden, where we [can] literally compare and contrast where and when the other person went wrong,” Mbami said.
“Today, [you need] $125,000 a year to buy a house. Under Donald Trump, it was $75,000. I want to be a homeowner in life.”
Doris Houseknech, an elderly voter from Hughesville, said border security is the most important issue for her.
“The border? It’s ridiculous. We don’t want people getting drugs. We don’t want our little girls being raped, and we don’t want all those thousands of young kids. They don’t even know where they are,” said Houseknech—referring to the Biden administration losing track of many unaccompanied minor children who crossed the border illegally after their placement into foster care.
“That’s terrible. It’s un-American,” she told The Epoch Times while attending a rally held by Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in Williamsport on Oct. 16.
The Epoch Times posed the issues highlighted by Trump supporters to Harris voters, and vice versa, to explore any common perspectives between the two groups. Yet voters responded with diametrically opposite claims about the same issues, suggesting a wide gulf of understanding between them.
“We [should] go back to Bidenomics,” said Gary Grack, a retired union worker in the oil and gas industry, who now runs a business in Erie.
“The stock market, the Dow—everything is booming, and 401(k)s are doing well. My business during COVID suffered a little bit … but now, I [haven’t] had a glitch. My brother’s a business owner, and his business is booming,” he told The Epoch Times.
He said that concerns about the economy are built upon false perceptions advanced by Trump.
“People in Pennsylvania spend. [They] go to a baseball game, go to a football game … these places are full. People are spending money. It’s a perception that he’s putting out there,” Grack said of Trump.
Regarding the border, Harris supporters frequently cited Trump’s opposition to a bipartisan border security bill in the Senate in February to claim he lacked genuine concerns about the issue.
“The Republicans, along with Trump, killed the bill to provide more border agents,” said John Knob, a retired unionized electrical worker in Erie who supports Harris. “They really didn’t help the situation.”
Some Pro-Abortion Voters Back Trump
Harris’s campaign has elevated abortion rights as its top argument this election, seeking to associate Trump with the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn a federal right to abortion under Roe v. Wade and push the issue to states to decide. In Pennsylvania, in particular, Harris has repeatedly promised to back a law that restores abortion access nationwide.
“It is my pledge to you that when Congress passes a bill to restore the protections and reproductive freedom nationwide, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law,” Harris told the crowd in Erie. “One in three women live in a state with a Trump abortion ban. Many of these bans have no exceptions for rape and incest.”
Trump has said that his opposition to Roe v. Wade enables states to make independent regulations about the procedure. He also supports exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape, incest, and where the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.
Despite Harris’s advocacy, many voters who personally support federal abortion rights said they will, nonetheless, vote for Trump.
“I think it’s women’s choice,” said Holly Thomas, an accountant in Williamsport who is supporting Trump. “I’ll be honest with you, there [are] multiple factors: it could be health reasons, it could be rape … [a woman is] trying to make the best decision for [her] family at that time, and I think it should be in the hands of the woman,” she told The Epoch Times at Vance’s Williamsport rally.
Her friend, Nicole Harriman, a fiscal analyst who is also backing Trump, agreed.
Pro-abortion voters backing Trump suggests a vulnerability for Harris’s campaign in Pennsylvania, whereby her primary abortion rights message may not be connecting with enough voters in the state. Many voters told The Epoch Times that the issue doesn’t take precedence over the economy and border security.
“I don’t want to say [abortion is] unimportant, but there are bigger issues,” said Mbami. “When you fix the big problems, our economy, the border, and our relationships with other countries in the world …[abortion] is something that we can fix after we get all of our big issues done.”
Abortion may not affect Pennsylvania voters in the same manner as other battleground states, such as Arizona and North Carolina, which have stricter abortion laws.
Republicans in Pennsylvania’s Legislature indicate they have no immediate plans to change abortion law in the state, which permits the procedure up to 24 weeks of pregnancy—a limit equivalent to that established by Roe v. Wade.
“For the last 50 years, [our laws] seemed to be okay with the voters of Pennsylvania. I’ve had no one call my office, send me an email, or ask me to put a complete ban on anything. Nor would I,” state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, a Republican, told The Epoch Times at a Trump campaign event featuring Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice in Waynesburg.
“What we have on the books right now, if it’s okay with my constituents, it’s okay with me,” Bartolotta said.
“We have a big uphill climb here … We need to get people educated to the point where there’s enough public support to get [a restriction] through,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Cris Dush, a Republican who attended Vance’s Williamsport rally. “It’s going to take some time.”
Time is running out for Harris and Trump to convince more voters to support them. Early voting in Pennsylvania is already underway and will conclude on Oct. 29. The general election, by contrast, is less than two weeks away, on Nov. 5.
