Former President Donald Trump again returned to the Keystone State for a rally at Pennsylvania State University on Saturday to generate support from young voters with less than two weeks until Election Day.
The former president and Vice President Kamala Harris are still neck and neck in the Keystone State, with much of the momentum Ms. Harris experienced upon entering the race this summer mostly dissipating.
“You know, we had a very short time with her honeymoon period, because nobody knew anything about her,” Mr. Trump said. “When they found out about her, she went down the tubes.”
He also dinged Ms. Harris for her rally with Beyonce in Houston on Friday, saying that she couldn’t have filled the Shell Energy Stadium without the pop superstar.
Pennsylvania, which boasts roughly 9 million registered voters and 19 electoral college votes, is likely the most valuable piece of the puzzle for both Ms. Harris’ and Mr. Trump’s White House ambitions.
In his pitch to young voters, a voting bloc that nationally and in swing states that Ms. Harris still has an advantage with, Mr. Trump warned that the vice president would “destroy” their inheritance, and vowed to never send them to war.
SEE ALSO: Trump woos autoworkers in Detroit suburb on first day of Michigan’s early voting
“We had no wars. We had peace through strength. It was a great thing. Peace through strength, and that’s it. You don’t have to send your kids out to war, have you get blown up for a country that you’ve never heard of and that doesn’t want anything to do with you anyway,” Mr. Trump said. “But I will not send you to fight and die in a foolish, never-ending foreign war.”
Neither candidate has created much separation in recent polling of the Keystone State. Polling aggregate Real Clear Polling has Mr. Trump ahead by a 10th of a point, while the last three polls from Emerson College, the New York Times/Siena College and CNN have the pair tied.
Early voting is underway in most states across the country, and so far, the University of Florida’s Election Lab has clocked 38.6 million total votes. In Pennsylvania, 1.2 million people have voted early. Democrats so far have the edge in the Keystone State, accounting for nearly 60% of turned-in ballots.
Democrats will look to maintain their grip on Pennsylvania after President Biden won the state by just more than 80,000 votes four years ago, but Mr. Trump has made numerous stops in the state throughout the campaign and has built a strong base of support.
In an interview with The New York Times, Sen. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania Republican, said the amount of support that Mr. Trump was generating in the Keystone Stone, physically represented by signs and Trump superstores that are brimming with Trump paraphernalia, was “astonishing.”
“It was almost like Taylor Swift kind of swag. It’s like of everything. It wasn’t just a sign,” Mr. Fetterman said. “It’s the kinds of thing that has taken on its own life on that. And it’s like something very special exists there. And that doesn’t mean that I admire it.
His return came after he spent last weekend Pennsylvania, where he rallied in golfing legend Arnold Palmer’s hometown of Latrobe and worked the fryer at a local McDonald’s as a dig against Ms. Harris, who has said that she once worked at the fast-food restaurant when she was in college, although McDonald’s has no record of her employment.
It also came on the heels of a busy Friday, where the former president sat in for a nearly 3-hour-long interview with comedian Joe Rogan then jetted to Traverse City, Michigan. Earlier Saturday, Mr. Trump held a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, in an attempt to woo autoworkers to back his White House bid.
Ms. Harris also stopped in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for a get-out-the-vote rally with former first lady Michelle Obama, which marked her first appearance on the campaign trail with the vice president during this election cycle.
While Ms. Harris won’t make a stop in Pennsylvania until Sunday in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden and first lady Jill Biden both held campaign events on her behalf on Saturday.
During his stop in Pittsburgh, Mr. Biden urged union workers to back Ms. Harris, a typical stalwart voting bloc for the Democratic party that has started to drift more in favor of Mr. Trump.
“I can think of no man who has thought less of the American worker,” Mr. Biden said.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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