PHILADELPHIA – It’s fitting that Tuesday night’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump is being held in the key general election battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Harris and Trump will face off at 9 p.m. ET at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the largest city in the Keystone State. The debate is the first and potentially the only showdown between Harris and Trump.
Both candidates have repeatedly made stops this summer in Pennsylvania, which was one of seven key swing states that decided the outcome of the 2020 election between Trump and President Biden. And Pennsylvania, along with Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, will likely determine who wins the White House in November.
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at IBEW Local Union #5 on Sept. 2, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
While the campaigns and their allied super PACs are pouring resources into all seven states, more money has been spent to run spots in Pennsylvania than any of the other battlegrounds. And both sides have dished out more dollars to reserve airtime going forward in the Keystone State than any of the other battlegrounds in the final eight weeks leading up to Election Day on Nov. 5, according to figures from AdImpact, a top national ad tracking firm.
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“It’s the one state that it’s hard to see someone losing and then still winning the presidential race,” Mark Harris, Pittsburgh-based longtime Republican national strategist and ad maker, told Fox News Digital. “It’s clearly ground zero.”
Harris, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns said, “You can see that in media reservations and in the candidates’ travel schedules. Clearly, the Trump campaign and the Harris camp believe this is a must-win situation.”
