A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In the race for president, there is one simple way to tell which states are the most competitive - look where the candidates are going. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith did just that.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: A candidate's time is the campaign's most limited resource. And in this final stretch of 2024, there are seven states getting almost all the traffic.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Oh, it's good to be back in Georgia.
DONALD TRUMP: Back in the great state of Michigan, with...
HARRIS: Nevada.
TRUMP: North Carolina, I love...
HARRIS: Back in Pennsylvania.
TRUMP: Wisconsin.
HARRIS: So Arizona...
KEITH: Since Vice President Harris entered the race five weeks ago, she and former President Donald Trump have made trips to each of these states at least once. Pennsylvania is getting extra love.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HARRIS: We're back.
(CHEERING)
HARRIS: And we're going to keep coming back, and we're going to keep coming back.
KEITH: Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, held a rally in Philadelphia, did a campaign bus tour in Western Pennsylvania. And, earlier this week, Harris rallied with President Biden in Pittsburgh. They are also spending big on television and digital advertising there. Meanwhile, Trump has visited the state five times since July, with more stops planned.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Oh, I could have had such a nice, easy life. I could be in a nice place right now, relaxing, watching the waves breaking, but I'd rather be right here in Harrisburg with you.
(CHEERING)
KEITH: Trump won Pennsylvania and the presidency in 2016. In 2020, he narrowly lost the state, and Trump is putting a lot of time and money behind winning it back.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: They say that, if you win Pennsylvania, you're going to win the whole thing. We cannot let these people...
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: ...win Pennsylvania.
KEITH: In addition to all the rallies, Trump and his allies have booked more than $70 million worth of television ad time in Pennsylvania between now and election day. That's according to the tracking firm AdImpact. To put that in perspective, that's more than Team Trump has reserved in all the other battleground states combined. David Urban ran Trump's Pennsylvania operation in 2016.
DAVID URBAN: I think Pennsylvania's going to be in that same spot. You're going to be 50,000 to 75,000 votes one way or the other. That's what's going to determine the election.
KEITH: Urban says there's also a practical reason both campaigns are spending so much time in Pennsylvania - it's close to home.
URBAN: Geographically, it's easy, right? Arizona and Nevada - you got to go all the way across America. To go to Pennsylvania, both for Harris and for Trump, it's a 20-minute flight.
KEITH: Trump is working to drive up turnout among the state's white working-class voters outside of the major cities, aiming to win the same way he did in 2016, though he is also hoping to make gains with Black and Latino men. The Harris campaign is trying to boost turnout in the cities and suburbs, but also aims to cut into Trump's margins in more rural parts of Pennsylvania, says Quentin Fulks, the deputy campaign manager.
QUENTIN FULKS: We are going to places where Democrats haven't gone before.
KEITH: That is also the case in Georgia, where, last week, Harris did another bus tour, this time in and around Savannah - a city that hasn't seen a general-election candidate visit since the 1990s. Again, Fulks.
FULKS: When you're talking about some of these states that are being decided by 12,000 votes, it doesn't matter if those votes come from Atlanta, or it doesn't matter if those votes come from Savannah or Augusta or somewhere in more rural Georgia - from Schley County, my hometown.
KEITH: The Trump and Harris teams have each reserved about $39 million in ad time in Georgia, a sign they both see it as winnable. North Carolina is another state getting a lot of candidate face time, even though Obama was the last Democratic nominee to win there, back in 2008. Polls show it close, with an advantage to Trump, but he probably wouldn't be spending all the time he is in North Carolina if his campaign was sure they had it in the bag.
Tamara Keith, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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