PITTSBURGH — On a cool Saturday morning, roughly two dozen volunteers gathered at the Jacob Center with one goal in mind: to persuade as many voters in the area to support former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in their battle for the White House.
Many of the Trump Force 47 volunteers would go out in pairs to knock on doors in the surrounding neighborhoods in Pennsylvania , while others would stay behind and phone bank on behalf of the former president's campaign.
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The volunteers were hoping to mobilize low-turnout Republicans in the community to commit to voting early for Trump and giving their phone numbers so that the GOP can continue to remind them to turn out ahead of the November election.
"I definitely need to see our country getting back on track. And I believe that former President Trump is the person that can do that job," said Carolyn Dorazio, a business attorney from Wexford, a Pittsburgh suburb, and one of the Trump Force 47 volunteers. "He's done that job before. I don't think he has any hidden agendas."
Supporters such as Dorazio could be the key to the Trump campaign winning the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, which is likely to determine the candidate who wins the election.
The easiest path to 270 Electoral College votes for either Harris or Trump involves winning the Keystone State's 19 electoral votes. Both campaigns and their allies are investing heavily in the state through paid advertising and multiple campaign stops ahead of the presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Despite the Democratic excitement over Harris's campaign after she replaced President Joe Biden as the nominee and polling showing the two candidates essentially tied in Pennsylvania , Republicans still believe Trump will win the state.
"I think Trump will win. It's always been Trump country," Dorazio said. "If you go out into the countryside, and I would like to see that, not the urban areas, control things that the entire state is involved in the process."
Trump's struggles with suburban voters in the Philadelphia collar-county area were especially notable during the Pennsylvania primary, where Trump won nearly 84% of the vote but Nikki Haley , a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, won almost 17%, roughly two months after ending her presidential campaign.
Philadelphia’s collar counties include Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties, which shifted in favor of Democrats in 2020, helping Biden win the state by a little more than 88,000 votes.
The Trump campaign, however, is focused on gaining back voters in the state that voted for former President Barack Obama and then flipped to Trump in 2016 as one key to winning again in November.
They aim to remind voters that under Biden, grocery and gas prices have risen, Harris once called to ban fracking before reversing her stance after she became the nominee, and point to the immigration problems at the southern border, a Trump official told the Washington Examiner.
The official also noted the campaign was not worried that Haley voters would defect to Harris in November.
David Gehring, 37, another Trump Force 47 volunteer from South Hills, a Pittsburgh suburb, claimed Trump would win because his 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by a little over 44,000 votes broke Democratic dominance in the state since 1988. Also working against Harris is that the Keystone State has never voted for a woman in a presidential race, nor has it had a woman governor or senator.
When volunteers talk to their neighbors, though, they meet at the pocketbook level on issues such as inflation and the energy sector, which is a key segment of the Pennsylvania electorate.
"We cannot concede here," Gehring stressed in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "We cannot let the Democrats take this and shut this energy down. It's incredible. It's important."
The Trump campaign has opted for an unconventional approach this cycle by ceding get-out-the-vote opportunities to allies including Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Action, Elon Musk's America PAC, and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
SBA Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, has made at least 310,266 visits to Pennsylvanians in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Scranton, and Erie as of Monday. The goal has been to mobilize less engaged anti-abortion voters who could boost Trump's efforts, while the America PAC has sent out mailers in the Keystone State urging votes to make a plan to vote early.
The Harris campaign's financial advantage over Trump has allowed it to spend more on advertising and opening field offices in Pennsylvania.
According to AdImpact , in Pennsylvania alone, there is nearly $26 million in future ad reservations in support of the vice president while there are nearly $23 million in future ad reservations for Trump.
"In Pennsylvania, we have 50 coordinated offices while Trump’s campaign trails and won’t say where they are located," wrote Harris campaign Chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon in a memo published Saturday. A previous campaign memo in August claimed the campaign also had almost 300 staffers in the state.
A Trump campaign official told the Washington Examiner that they have more than two dozen offices in the Keystone State, but they did not give specifics on how many staffers they have employed.
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Harris's financial advantage doesn't appear to stress Republicans in the state.
"The thing about Harris is she's not honest. So she can push out as much information as she wants, but most of it is just fictitious," Gehring said. "No matter how much money she spends, she's pushing lies."
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