Inside the Fight for Pennsylvania

摘要

ALL SUMMER LONG, JOE BIDEN SURROGATES in Pennsylvania lived in fear of a rerun of 2016's Nightmare on Election Night, when the Democratic candidate for president, after leading in the polls for weeks, lost the state to Donald Trump by less than one percentage point, clearing his path to the White House. Their biggest concern was tactical: By avoiding in-person campaigning during the pandemic, Biden insiders worried, the former VP was ceding a big advantage to Trump, who, coronavirus be damned, was holding boisterous rallies across the Keystone State and, by proxy, knocking on millions of doors, just as he'd successfully done four years before. Fast forward to early fall, though, and suddenly Biden was everywhere-on a tour of western Pennsylvania with whistle stops in Pittsburgh, Latrobe, Greensburg and Johnstown; delivering a unity speech in Gettysburg; and authorizing door-to-door canvassing to drum up support and get out the vote, not just in PA but across other battleground states as well.