President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks on America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019, at the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex in Monaca, Pa. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
Let’s stretch a little and make the assumption that Trump wins Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona.
What then is a potential key to Trump winning the election? Winning Pennsylvania, which Trump shockingly won in 2016.
Here’s a look:
In the 2016 presidential election, Clinton won under 11 Pennsylvania counties. Trump won dozens.
Each county is as important in 2020 and should receive Trump team attention.
In the far eastern part of PA, eight of the Clinton counties are grouped tightly. Six of the eight are competitive for Trump.
Those counties run north to south from Lackawanna to Chester.
Targeting even more closely, assume that just three counties – Monroe, Lehigh, and Bucks – were close enough in favor of Clinton in 2016 for the Trump team to make each mandatory “on the ground “ contact counties in 2020
A small focused effort such as this should be light lifting for a digital contact team as strong as the Trump team appears to be.
I have zero insider input on what the focus by “team Trump” will be in the final days of the 2020 campaign, but if you hear Bucks County, PA coming up in strategy discussions, assume that the President is on a potential track to give his campaign a good shot.
Debbie and I will be on the ground in eastern Pennsylvania next week and will be able to bring to you some anecdotal evidence in the unscientific form of lawn sign counting and first-hand Q&A, which by now we’ve refined.
We shall see.
