Pennsylvania’s is known as “The Keystone State.” There are lots of reasons for this moniker but the one most pertinent at the moment is that it holds the key to the White House.

It is generally agreed that whomever tops the poll in Pennsylvania will also pull in the vital swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by the narrowest margin since 1840. But then Biden didn’t do much better in 2020. His margin of victory was only 80,555 out of a total of 6,725, 902 Pennsylvania votes cast.

The Keystone State is a microcosm of divided America. In the East you have Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. Rich and filled mainly with liberal democrats, it has a population of about 5.7 million–almost half of the total state population of 13 million. In the West you have 2.3 million people in steel town—Pittsburgh. There is also J.D. Vance’s downtrodden Appalachia and fracking country which translates as Trump territory. In the middle there is a mix of rural voters vs liberals inhabiting the largest number of colleges and universities in America.

Up until Kamala Harris’s entry into the race, the opinion polls showed Trump and Biden either neck and neck or Trump slightly ahead. The latest post-debate polls show Kamala Harris with a 4 to 6 point lead. But it is early in the race and that lead could evaporate as her debate victory fades in the voters’ memories. There have been no polls since the second assassination attempt or the Federal Reserve Bank’s cut in interest rates.

The Democrats are taking nothing for granted in Pennsylvania. They have 350 staff working in 50 offices across the state. So far the Harris campaign has spent $164.1 million in advertising. This compares to the Republican efforts of $135.7 million. It is virtually impossible to switch on your television, radio or computer without being confronted with a political ad attacking one or the other candidates.

The Republicans have fewer people on the ground and appear to be less organised. The bulk of their efforts is on encouraging postal votes among their MAGA base. This is ironic in that Trump opposed postal voting in 2020. He claimed it led to electoral fraud. It is clear that he is trying to put together a coalition of White working class, evangelical Christians, rural voters and a smattering of male ethnic voters.

If Pennsylvania is the key to the White House than Montgomery County outside Philadelphia is regarded by psephologists as the key to Pennsylvania’s 19 Electoral College votes. It has a population of 856,000 and is 72.7 percent White.  There is a big evangelical community which is expected to back Trump but there are also a large number of liberals who commute into New York and Washington on Amtrak’s high speed northeast corridor commuter trains.

In terms of registered voters Harris has the edge with 302,985 registered Democrats out of a total of 606,385. Registered Republicans total 205,268 and the much sough-after Independents add up to 67,703. In Montgomery County the opinion polls show Kamala Harris seven percentage points ahead of the former president. Good, but she is still a long way from assured victory.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”