Republican Presidential nominee, former president Donald J. Trump remarks during a campaign event PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh Nov. 3. 2024. (Matt Petras for the Capital-Star)
After losing the state to Joe Biden in 2020, former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, is projected to win Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, according to the Associated Press, which called the race at 2:24 a.m. on Wednesday.
It was a bruising race that saw both presidential candidates campaign relentlessly in Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, rose to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid in July following a terrible debate performance against Trump. If she had been elected, Harris would have been the first Black, Asian-American woman president.
State officials did not expect there to be a clear winner announced on Election Day in Pennsylvania, due in large part to how mail-in ballots are counted. Election workers can’t begin canvassing mail ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day itself, and in a large city like Philadelphia, that process takes longer.
Neither candidate had a path to victory without Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania was one of the three “blue wall” states that Barack Obama carried during both of his presidential campaigns, but which Donald Trump won in 2016, beating Hillary Clinton by just under 45,000 votes. Joe Biden won the state in 2020 by about 80,000 votes.
Trump began the 2024 campaign early on, seemingly poised to cruise to easy victory over Biden, whose approval ratings were low all year, due in large part to the stubborn inflation that kept prices high across the board for many Americans.
Trump survived two assassination attempts in 2024, including one in Butler in July, where rallygoer Corey Comperatore was killed. Trump rallied back from the incident, and a photo of him, fist raised, ear bloodied, became an indelible image of not only his campaign, but the 2024 race.
According to unofficial results from the Pennsylvania Department of State, as of 3 a.m. Wednesday, Trump had 3,388,383 votes, or 51%, compared to Harris’ 3,203,028 votes, or 48%. Green Party candidate Jill Stein had 32,090 votes, or 0.48% and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver had 31,555 votes, or 0.47%
This article was first published by Pennsylvania Capital-Star, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.