PHILADELPHIA (NewsNation) — With President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump locked in to receive their party’s nominations for the 2024 presidential election, Tuesday’s primary in Pennsylvania could offer a sign of which way voters are leaning.
In Pennsylvania, there are 19 electoral votes up for grabs in November, and it is one of three states — along with Michigan and Wisconsin — that went narrowly for Trump in 2016.
Biden was able to win voters back during the 2020 election, but his small margin of victory is putting a spotlight on his home state this time around.
War in Israel’s impact on election
The sitting president’s handling of the war in Israel is expected to be a big focus leading up to the November election.
Pennsylvania has more than 300,000 Jewish voters — the largest Jewish population out of any swing state — and they are expected to have a big voice in the battleground state.
Both candidates have spent time in the Keystone State.
“Today, we face another inflection point in history. The 2024 election is about two fundamentally different visions for America. Donald Trump’s vision is one of anger, hate, revenge, and retribution,” Biden said in Philadelphia during a recent stop there.
“We have to debate. We have to explain to the American people what the hell is going on because they, they’re looking at the border and they’re looking at inflation and they’re looking at the economy, which is terrible,” Trump said during a recent rally in Schnecksville.
Biden’s ‘risking a lot’ supporting Israel
The Democratic Socialists of America launched an initiative urging Pennsylvania residents to write in “uncommitted” on the ballot in protest of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
It’s similar to efforts in Michigan’s Democratic primary election last month, where 13% of voters selected “uncommitted” instead of Biden.
NewsNation spoke with Ron Joseph, one of the initiative’s leaders who says the group already has five endorsements from organizations statewide and has contacted more than 100,000 voters.
“He is risking a lot going into this November by continuing to support Israel, especially in this manner. A lot of Pennsylvanians will demonstrate to the Biden administration that it must act now to end the seizure in Gaza and achieve a cease-fire in Palestine. Or go into November having alienated millions of constituents and go with an unmotivated voter base,” Joseph said.
The group’s goal is to convince more than 40,000 Pennsylvania voters to write in “uncommitted” during Tuesday’s primary.
US Senate race: Casey vs. McCormick
Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primaries will also cement the lineup for a high-stakes U.S. Senate race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick, a contest that is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and could help decide control of the Senate next year.
Casey, seeking his fourth term, is perhaps Pennsylvania’s best-known politician and a stalwart of the presidential swing state’s Democratic Party — the son of a former two-term governor and Pennsylvania’s longest-ever serving Democrat in the Senate.
McCormick is a two-time Senate challenger, a former hedge fund CEO and Pennsylvania native who spent $14 million of his own money only to lose narrowly to celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022’s seven-way GOP primary. Oz then lost to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman in a pivotal Senate contest.
This time around, McCormick has consolidated the party around his candidacy and is backed by a super PAC that’s already reported raising more than $20 million, much of it from securities-trading billionaires.
McCormick’s candidacy is shaping up as the strongest challenge to Casey in his three reelection bids. McCormick, intent on shoring up support in the GOP base, told an audience of conservatives in suburban Harrisburg earlier this month that he tells people “you’re going to agree with about 80% of what I say … but we disagree 90% of the time with the crazy progressive left that’s destroying our country.”
Battle for control over Washington
Casey is one of Biden’s strongest allies in Congress.
The two men share a hometown of Scranton, and their political stories are intertwined. Biden — who represented neighboring Delaware in the Senate and roots for Philadelphia sports teams — has effectively made Pennsylvania his political home as a presidential candidate. Long before that, Biden was nicknamed “Pennsylvania’s third senator” by Democrats because he campaigned there so often.
McCormick and Trump have endorsed each other but are an awkward duo atop the GOP’s ticket. Trump savaged McCormick in 2022’s primary in a successful bid to lift Oz to his primary win. And McCormick, for his part, has told of a private meeting in which he refused Trump’s urging to say that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, a disproven claim the former president has never abandoned.
Democrats currently hold a one-seat majority in the Senate but face a difficult 2024 map that requires them to defend incumbents in the red states of Montana and Ohio and fight for open seats with new candidates in Michigan and West Virginia.
A Casey loss could give Republicans control of the Senate.
Voters have until 8 p.m. local time to cast their ballots.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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