All Eyes on Pennsylvania
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I'm Shane Goldmacher. I'm a national political correspondent for The New York Times covering the 2024 election. At The New York Times, I get to work with colleagues who have expertise in every nook and cranny of this country and this campaign trail to tell you the full story of what's happening in these critical moments in the last few weeks of the election. If this kind of coverage is important to you, you can support it by subscribing to The New York Times at nytimes.com slash subscribe.

Okay, we're gonna role play. We're gonna role play the new scripts. Right? And remember, we start the conversation emphasizing who they're voting for, but the goal is to work them through their vote plan. Right? Whether it is voting early at a satellite election office, whether it's returning a mail-in ballot, or whether it is showing up on election day and helping them navigate what that looks like. Who's my, who's my exorcist? Who's the voter?

Mike, you going to be a voter? Okay. Action. Last week, my colleague Caitlin and I joined up with another group of canvassers. This time, Kamala Harris supporters in West Philadelphia. They were with the Pennsylvania Working Families Party, a progressive political organization. And before they headed out to knock doors, they were gathered in a little side yard, working through role-playing scenarios for how to handle different voters they might encounter.

Good afternoon, how you doing? Hi, we're coming with Working Family Party and we want to know if you're going out to vote on November the 5th. I'm not really sure. I'm not really into neither one of the candidates. You're not sure you want to vote? Why don't you want to vote? I just don't like neither one of the candidates at the time. Yeah, but what do you not like about Trump?

He pro-Republican, you know what I'm saying? I'm just not sided with Republicans and I just don't want a female in office, so.

Why would you not want a female in office? We the ones who run the world. -I don't know. I'm still a little undecided. I'm leaning Kamala, but... -She's gonna help the seniors. She's gonna help taxes. Trump basically is KKK. My thing is, if you think both of them are bad,

Vote for the one that you think is the better of the evils. But whatever you do, you need to vote. It's very important. Absolutely. You're right. That's something I got to think about. And you really need to think about a woman, because again, we brought them. A black woman at that.

I'm going to lean Kamala Harris. Oh, thank you. We greatly appreciate your... And you said I could vote early? Yes, yes. And how would I do that? There's 11 places that you can go to to vote early, and I'll tell you because I'll have it on the phone. Okay. But we expect to see you out there. We expect to see you to vote. Thank you for coming by. Nice talking to you.

Okay. What works? What was good? He was adamant about getting out the polls. He was adamant about getting out the vote. Anything else? What works? The importance of the election. The importance of the election in the states. For a clear hate for Trump. Very, very clear. Yes, very clear. What were some opportunities?

-Getting out early to vote. -Getting out early to vote. Yeah. Anything else? -I wouldn't have said lesser of two evils.

Why not? I try not to use that phrase because I think it contributes to voter apathy. It implies that they're both evil and you don't want to reinforce that. How would you rephrase it then? The one who agrees with you or is closer to you or the vision for how you want to see society. Or which one is closer to your value. So what Noah was explaining was the lesser of two evils argument is like they're both evil and it's not...

Framing in the negative does not encourage anybody to do anything typically. But this person is closer aligned to where I want to be. It's much more hopeful. It's much more affirming than saying, well, they're both evil. Which one's like here and this one's like, you know, a step up. Does that make sense? So the point is, right, the thing that we've been saying over and over, right, our vote is not a love letter. It is a chess move, right? And so

The Harris campaign, the Harris presidency represents the best path forward for the world we are trying to create for the working class. Full stop. That does not mean we in love with everything. That does not mean it's just sit back for the next four and, you know, I mean, we're good, right? It means we're setting the playing field, right? And that's what we want to communicate with the voters. On that note...

Today, the Democrats' final push in the all-important state of Pennsylvania and a conversation with the state's top election official on how he's preparing for close results in the most closely watched state. From The New York Times, I'm Ested Herndon. This is The Runoff.

Who's ready to knock some doors? As you may have heard, there's no state more likely to tip the election than Pennsylvania. It has the most electoral votes of any swing state, and its flip from red to blue back in 2020 helped secure the win for Joe Biden. For Harris to win Pennsylvania this year, she needs to persuade and motivate several different groups.

moderates and former Republicans, who are turned off by Donald Trump and the Democratic base, including Black voters in urban centers like Philadelphia, who famously didn't show up in big enough numbers for Hillary Clinton in 2016. But there's some concern that she's prioritizing the moderate and former Republican vote over minority and lower-income voters, and that coincides with polls showing signs of strength for Trump among the latter group.

Which is why I wanted to spend time with the Working Families Party in particular. They're specifically trying to reach minority and lower-income voters in places like Philadelphia. And I figured they'd have the best view on whether Harris is actually in trouble with this group she can't afford to lose. My name is Salah Muhammad. I am the Pennsylvania Organizing Director with the Working Families Party. So I grabbed the guy who'd been leading the training, Salah Muhammad.

and asked about what we'd seen and also what we could expect on the doors. I'm not here to give you a promise. I'm here to be in a relationship with you in a

Real fucking way. Excuse my French. Right. And so, like, I don't want to don't give me no bullshit promises. Don't give me some pie in the sky dreams about what we're building. Be real with me. Be in relationship with me. Have a conversation about, like, what it means to be evicted from your home. But I got to figure out where I'm voting and vote for the president of the United States. Right. And instead, yeah.

I've been evicted from my home. Let's talk about what local legislation looks like to protect that voter and to build power in that way so that we can actually set the deck, set the playing field for what we're doing. I read some stuff that there were some concerns that the Harris campaign was not empowering cities, organizers in Philadelphia, places like Detroit. Am I—I'm not hearing that here? Well, I mean, the beauty is, is we are not the Harris campaign. I know. That's why I'm asking you.

That's what I'm asking you. You know, the beauty is, is, you know, I get to empower my organizers to be creative and to be in real relationship with people that's not beholden to the machinery that is any major political party, right? To be clear, we're here because we wanted to hear folks working from the type of premise that we're hearing here. But the question I'm asking is, like, does the fact that that happens outside of campaigns and not in campaigns, is that even part of the reason why

that they sometimes have difficulty not converting those low propensity voters? I would argue that we are filling a role

Because I want to come from the avenue of what we are doing and the need that we see. We're filling a role to be able to engage organically and be in relationship with organizers, with our community, because we see the need. Period. Period. Period. I got it. I got you. I got you. And I can, like, I can complain about...

who's not doing what, you know, I will sometimes, right? I can complain about like the system and the two-party establishment, right, as being problematic as it is. But if I just complain and not activate and do the thing, then, you know, what am I really doing, right? And so I can complain about why it ain't being done elsewhere or I can also just step up and say, I'm going to do it myself and I'm going to have organizers that's going to be creative and do it as well. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. You got it.

After we talked, Salah let us follow him and a canvasser named Rashida Bagwell-Hyland to another part of West Philadelphia, where they were trying to put all of this into action.

— I grew up right around the corner. — You are Mr. Westphilly. — We with the mayor of Westphilly. — You know what? The mayor of Westphilly and the president of Northphilly. — And the president of Northphilly. We're good in every hood now. We're valid. — There you go. — It's interesting that I'm the mayor, but you're the president. — We were on a block of row houses, some of them decorated for Halloween.

Beware spooky. Enter if you dare. Caution. What's been, like, how has the community changed? Man, um...

It's changed a lot, but it's like not that much. I think that's actually one of the biggest concerns is like... How little it's changed? How little it's changed. I can walk through West Philly and it still feels like 1989 from like the way the houses are to, you know, even the type of cars the folks drive, right? Like...

It's stagnant. It's stagnant. It's empty promises on policy. It's all of those things. It was a beautiful day, and a few people were on their porches. Would you be Corrine? Like Corrine. Nice to meet you. My name is Rashida, and I'm with the Working Families Party. So as you know, upcoming election, you're down as a registered voter at this address, so that's how I know who you are, just to see your numbers. Okay. So what I wanted to know is,

- You know, like, would you commit to voting for Kamala Harris? Like, which way are you voting? - Honestly, I don't like either one. Why? Because I did my research on her. - Okay. - And she's not that good either. - Okay. - She done done stuff.

Right. OK, so question. Since...

You definitely, you had valid points because at the end of the day, no politician is perfect. No, nobody's perfect. No, we can't expect perfection from anybody. So, to say that you're not voting for her, are you voting for him or are you planning to not vote for either of them? Honestly, I didn't make that decision yet. You haven't decided? No, I want to still do my own research. Okay. Because at the end of the day, it's not about them. It's about our community. They keep talking middle class issues.

To me, that's not logic. If you can't rent and you just have $2,000 in your bank account, you're considered poor.

Mm-hmm. So... I think most people would agree with that because for $2,000, that's probably only a month of rent for most people. And I agree with everything that you're saying when you want to do your more research, but let me just leave you with a little bit of information, a little education that maybe will help your research. Yes, you're absolutely right. He's horrible. We don't want him in office. And yes, she has put people in prison when she was a prosecutor, but speaking as a person...

with three A1 felonies on my record, I wouldn't be behind her if I didn't know that there are some strengths to that. When she was doing that, first of all, that was a part of her job.

And then she didn't pick out. She didn't. Let me finish. She didn't go into these neighborhoods and pick out these black men and put them in jail herself. The police officers arrested them. They get arrested. They get tried before the person even gets to the prosecutor. And we both know that that's how it works. I got six convictions. A prosecutor can stand in the courtroom and say, I recommend he go to a drug program and not jail. Very true. But let me tell you this. The difference between him and her.

He's trying to set us back 500 years. Let me leave you with that. You being a convicted felon and myself, we're talking about the lesser of two evils, it should always be her.

So while you're researching, remember what I said. Also think about not just your future, but the future of the ones that's coming behind you. Things might not change in our lifetime, but we want them to change for the younger ones. No, I agree. I agree. I want the change. Yeah. We may not see it the way we want to, but I have children. Me too. Even if I don't see it in my lifetime, I want my daughters...

children to be able to see it. So we have to vote. Yeah, I don't want my daughter to think that this is just what she have to do when she don't feel none of it. So can I say a couple of things? One, my name's Salah, also with the Working Families Party. And, you know, I'm straight up with you. I don't trust most of the politicians that stand.

But at the same time, I'm trying to make sure, you know, for me and my son, right, that we stack the deck to make it as close to the thing that I want as possible or make it easier to get there. Right. And so, you know, one of the reasons why we've endorsed Kamala Harris and we've been out knocking doors for her is because we know we can put pressure on her to get what we want.

She's going to fight against us at times. But I know that we can put that pressure to get the things that we need in our community with her. We can't do that with Trump. We're talking about people starving now with the inflation. We're talking about, I went for an apartment. They told me $3,500. That's too big of an apartment.

They're trying to do what they did in the 70s. They're trying to push us out of regeneration. Is she going to stop that? And that's why we exist the way we do, because we focus on local municipal races more often than we focus on the big federal races. And so we have our own two candidates that sit on city council right here in Philadelphia that's passing legislation to protect renters from being evicted.

But we can't get that done on a local level if you got, you know, somebody that's like Trump. One thing I see with Trump, people wasn't starving like they is now. Because of what's your reasoning? Honestly, I really don't have too much of...

I asked you that because a lot of people are saying that when he was in office, that money hit. And a lot of people believe that he was responsible for it. And that's why people are like, oh, we were eating. We wasn't starving. That wasn't him. No, it probably wasn't. No, no. I know it wasn't. So people got that money because Congress signed off on that money, not because anything special that Trump did. He happened to be who was in office at the time. So, of course, he attached his name to it.

My name's Ested. This is Kaitlin. We're from the New York Times. You're following around the Working Families folks today. I would also just want to know, like, how are you going to make the decision about whether to vote or not vote? Like, what's it going to come down to? Honestly, what it's going to come down to is... with my heart. It's going to come down to who I believe...

is going to make sure not just my family, this family right here, this family right here, this family right here. I want to make sure these people don't lose their homes. Y'all talking about Kamala hands? Yeah. While we were talking, Kareem's neighbor had walked over. Don't go next door because it might be fire. They hate Kamala. Listen, I don't care. I don't vote. Whoever be the president, right, we done anyway. It don't matter if it's her or, I'm going to tell you why.

We all know Donald Trump throw it off, right? Boom. So that's war he get in. They just brutally honest to me. She a woman. The other countries that's in power, they dictatorships. They don't respect women running the country. So they gonna go at it. So we done. Let's get ready. So just pray to whoever you pray to. Kareem, I really appreciate talking to you. And again, I respect your opinion of leftists. This is what I want to leave you with. I know you don't know today. You said you just have to figure out what your heart follows.

Think hard on it. And no matter what you do, vote either way. Don't give up your right to vote. You understand? I can't force you to vote for her. Of course, we endorse her. But it's not just about Kamala Harris. It's about the other people that are on the community level. So vote. Rashida and Salah left some flyers with Kareem and spent some time encouraging him to support progressive candidates down ballot.

Then, they kept working their way down the street. I was going to ask, if someone is a Trump voter, do you still do the vote plan encouragement to vote? Yeah. You can't answer the door right now, but if you'd like to leave a message, you can do it now. It's just like, okay, have a great day.

It's a feeling for me, if I'm being honest. I've literally had people that I've turned. And then there were people that I'm like, let me get off these steps and off this block because they were giving, I'm going to let my Rottweiler out the house for you because you're endorsing Kamala Harris. You get what I'm saying? It's kind of like a gut feeling. Maybe I can keep engaging and sometimes it's just like, have a blessed day. Thank you. And we're certainly not like,

Rashida and Salah were working off a list of names of registered voters who, for one reason or another, were identified as a canvassing target. But a lot of people weren't answering. We maybe got a response every third or fourth house.

All right.

-Huh? -What's going on? -You looking at me like, "Listen, I got you." -I'll make this fast. I'm not gonna take up a lot of your time. So are you committing to voting for Kamala Harris? -I'm not really sure. I don't really know too much about her or what Trump got going on. -Okay. -I ain't gonna say anything.

You got two minutes, and I can give you a little bit of background information on the two of them, and maybe that can help you decide which way you want to go with that. So what you don't already know, I'm going to help you know. So first of all, I'm not even going to get into the whole thing about whether or not Trump is free. These are classes. Anybody that's not rich and in a certain tax bracket, he doesn't care whether you're black or white. That's the first thing. Let's just get that out of there. Kamala Harris is someone that, yeah, she used to be a prosecutor, but she is now...

pushing for working felines, which means that you have people that are rich and then you have people that are poor and then you have people like us, people that get up, go to work every day. She's pushing for things like that. So when you decide whether or not you want to vote, it doesn't have to be somebody that you're in love with or know every single thing about, but gear your decision more towards what you do know. He's trying to give immunity to police officers.

Somebody like you out here in the street, a young black man, he's telling the cops that they can walk up to you, do whatever it is that they want to do, and they'll completely get away with it. Just a little background information on him. She's trying to make affordable housing for people in communities like us. He's trying to take away funding for the public school system and privatize everything.

She's trying to keep that going on. So, when you do go vote on November 5th, because you're going to vote, right? You're exercising your right to vote, right? You're going to vote. What's your voting plan? Do you have a ride? Do you need to walk? Do you need somebody to pick you up? You drive? Perfect. You know where you're voting at? Where's your voting place? Ah. You want me to tell you? I can let you know. That's what I'm here for.

So you would go to Church Property, 659 North 56th Street. You familiar with that? I think I know that. Yep, so that's around the corner. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Question quick. My name's Ested. This is Caitlin. We're from the New York Times. We're following them around. Have you typically voted? No, no, I'm a felon, so they told me I was never allowed to vote. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

3-8-1 draw convictions. Home six years, December 18th for this year. I've voted in every election since I've been home. Please, I'm coming back through here later and I'm going to leave the literature in the door for you. You can vote. Don't let them lie to you. That ruffles my feathers. You can vote. I told you this shit was about to go off. That right there. Because you know how many people tell me that? I can't, I can't. They don't want us to. You want me to tell you why? Because we're the ones...

No shade to people that haven't committed crimes. But we're the ones that need the most change. We have the most obstacles in front of us. They don't want our voices heard because we have been through the system. So they tell us we can't vote so that we can step back and do nothing. That's even more of a reason why I want you at the polls at 6.50, not 7 o'clock. So I got to come back up here and get you. If your car break down, you Google working families and you call Rashida, I'll come get you and take you around the corner. Because we're in the same fraternity.

Excuse me. That might be how I get catched a lot of news. - That's right there. I'm like, I don't know. - They're like, what? They told you what? Do you know how many people I run to on the debt? Like just canvassing in general.

People are like, well, look, I wish I could vote. And I'm like, why can't you? I mean, connected to this, it does seem like Harris's prosecutor record comes up a lot, too. Do we think that's specific to Black men in communities that have high incarceration rates? Like, I guess I'm saying, like, is it just a thing people know about her? Like, it feels as if you're ready to answer that. People hear prosecutor and look, which I understand. People hear prosecutor and it's like they automatically...

She's a cop. That's the mindset in these communities anyway. Prosecutor, cop, anything. Someone who is committing harm in our community. So I was a corrections officer. So I was once law enforcement. In prison, that's when I became an activist. So sometimes it takes for something to happen for somebody to change. So maybe the way she felt at the time when she was a prosecutor, she doesn't feel that way anymore. And she wants to make change and that's why she's running. Cool. We can keep going. All right. Let's go.

We knocked on some more doors. Rashida left flyers for the people who didn't answer. Oh, let me canvas this young man. That was all we're almost done. And then we came to a house where two women were sitting on the porch, one of them holding a baby. Hello. Hello. I'm looking for Ashley...

Louis, Yvette, or Marvin? Louis is across the street at his mother's house, but he should be coming right now. Okay. And Ashley, I don't know where Annie at. Okay, well, what I'm going to do is, if you don't mind, I'm going to leave this literature right here. Okay, listen, y'all voting for it. What about y'all then? She just said that. Oh, you are. I'm voting for Trump. Oh, my God. No, I'm not.

If you didn't hear that...

It was one of the women saying Harris gives her a demonic vibe. And if you're Christian, she goes against everything that Jesus taught us. That's one. Two, as much as people try to talk a mess about Trump, when Trump was in office, we did not struggle. There's not this many homeless people. He was not going to work with all these different countries. She's not good enough.

No, she has a right to uptake. So look, I've heard reasons why you won't vote for her. What's your reasons for voting for Trump? As much as people keep trying to talk about all this reproductiveness and all female shacks. She is funny. After three months, a baby can feel, they have emotions, they can hear.

They drinking, they're eating, so you're literally killing a human being, not a fetus. No, you're killing a child. Listen, when we talk about reproductive rights, I'm a mother of three. I kept all my children. But in 2008, I did have a miscarriage and had to be rushed to the hospital. And because of the laws that he wants to put in place, I would have died if those laws were in place in Pennsylvania because I did have to have...

DNC. You understand? It wasn't that I went in there and didn't want my baby. I wanted my baby. So the point that I'm making is if he gets in office, right, and he passes that law and say you, her, me, her, anybody gets pregnant again,

And we have a miscarriage because God is saying, and some of that fetal tissue is still in there and the doctors won't remove the rest of it, you'll die. That's not his choice to make. And I don't think it is a big thing. But neither party should be even trying to touch that as a whole. First of all, it's called mind your business.

This went on for a while. Well, I'm going to leave your names to your debate. I hope I didn't start right in the middle.

- I want everybody to come out and vote. Can you let, um... - Louie? - Yes, I'm loving our kid. Like, I can't go to somebody else's house and hate you so much. - No, his mom, we all know. - But you can pass the literature on, okay? - Yes. - Thank you so much. - Let me mark Louie as not her. That was a, look, life of a canvasser. - The baby's so cute. I wanted to tell how cute the baby was.

We made it to the end of the block and regrouped. Yeah, what's y'all's plan? My plan is I have a couple meetings that I need to head to. We decided to stay a little longer. Rashida had brief conversations with a few more people. Do you all need any information or any help getting to your voting place on election day? I don't think we got it covered. You got it covered? All right. We've been doing it longer than y'all are old. I'm listening, and I love it. And tried more doors.

A lot more doors. As we went, I asked Rashida Moore about her experience as a canvasser. You've been talking to a group of people that is so central to who's might win in this state, right? Like, a lot of people across the country are thinking about how Black folks in places like Philly are thinking right now. From your sense of those conversations, do you think that Trump has made inroads with Black people? Yeah.

Yeah, I think that like that conversation that we were having earlier, I think what it is for a lot of people, they're thinking money. And I understand it, even though it bothers me that they're misinformed. But when you're in an impoverished community and you've grown up and spent your whole life not having and you get something, it's easy to want to...

like, align with the person that you believe made that happen for you. So they're looking at it like, oh, my God, well, if he did it, and it's like, he didn't. So, yeah, I do think that he's definitely going to get a lot of black votes because people believe that he changed...

Thanks for them. And then the other question I have is like, you know, if this was 2008 and we were in black communities, we would hear so much like palpable excitement around Obama and representation and the fact that a black person could get in there. Why do you think it doesn't feel exactly the same with the chance for a black woman? She's a woman.

It's cut and dry. It's like we don't even have to stand here. I don't have to be like, well, knock on a sugar coat. It's because she's a woman. And a lot of people don't believe that a woman is strong enough. What I've been saying to them is that, especially people in these communities, most of you, correct me if I'm wrong, and I always ask, come from a home where the woman was like the head of household. So it's like your mother raised you.

I'm a strong, independent woman. And if I can run a household and get kids up for school and make sure that people get back and forth to doctor's appointments and all of that, I mean, it's like people are already banking on the fact that the world is going to come to an end and she's going to have to make all of these big decisions and she won't be able to do it because women are emotional. That's what I've been hearing. But look at who...

the person is that she's running against. He's probably more emotional than any woman that I've ever encountered or listened to in my life. Like he's very emotional. He doesn't speak intelligently, if that makes sense. So if you could distill what's the biggest obstacle you hear for people in terms of supporting Harris, do you think it's sexism? Is it the prosecutor? What is, do you think, the thing you have to overcome the most when you're out here?

the prosecution thing. Okay. Because in these particular neighborhoods, if I'm not talking to a person...

that has been convicted of a crime themselves. It's usually the mother, the father, the sister, the aunt, the uncle. So, which, again, I understand. I've been on both sides of it. So I understand the apprehension of wanting law enforcement in the White House. They think she's going to come through and just lock up all the black and poor people. But on the flip side of that, he's talking about giving police immunity. So if I had to take my chances, I'd rather put a former prosecutor...

in a position of leadership and somebody that's telling me the cops can kill me and they won't even, you know, speak about it. Thank you so much. We had a great day. Thank you. I think so. I think so. We really had a great day. Our car's right there. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Not look. You know, like, I'm always aware of that. Yeah, I mean, I'm from the hood, but I'm at that age where I don't hang out in the hood anymore. Like, I'm in and out. Yeah. I'll see you later.

What Rashida says matches up with the data and our own reporting. Trump has made inroads among some Black and working class voters, capitalizing on dissatisfaction with the current administration and a feeling among some that the country needs a change on things like the economy or immigration. As we heard, groups like the Working Families Party are trying to combat that message on the ground. And the Harris campaign is trying to also.

talking about how she'd help with housing costs, inflation, and groceries. But more recently, Harris' closing argument has become more and more focused on Donald Trump, seeking to frame the race as a referendum on his character. On January 6th, for this week's rally at Madison Square Garden, where a comedian and a candidate

Both made headlines for racist and misogynistic rhetoric. Because for as much as the organizers in Philly encourage canvassers to stay away from a lesser-of-two-evils framework in making their pitch for Harris, it still may be their most effective argument, particularly if the Trump campaign's closing message targets the very people he's been trying to win over. More after the break.

I'm Michael Gold. I'm a political correspondent for The New York Times. My job is to cover the race for president this year. The Times' live coverage is so valuable because we have people on the ground who can give you information as they're experiencing it. And we have a team of reporters and editors sifting through the day's information, giving you real-time updates so that in any given moment, you have a sense of what's happened that day, what's coming still, what it all means.

It's so hard in a breaking news situation to sort out what you actually need to know. At The Times, you know that we're putting things in the context that helps what you're seeing in the moment make a lot more sense. You're getting fast information, but you know that it's reliable. When you subscribe to The New York Times, you get access to all of our live coverage leading up to the election and on election night itself. You can subscribe at nytimes.com slash subscribe. There's another important question to ask about Pennsylvania, beyond who's going to win.

And that is, when will we know the results? It's an especially important question because of what happened in 2020. Off to Pennsylvania now. Election workers continue to count ballots around the clock after the state received an unprecedented amount of mail-in ballots. They just started this morning opening up those ballots. They were way behind compared to other states. They did not get a head start. Back then...

Pennsylvania's votes took days to count. And it wasn't until four days after Election Day that major news organizations called Pennsylvania

and the whole election for President Biden. That means we can now project that former Vice President Joe Biden has been elected president of the United States. Partly, the delay occurred because Pennsylvania has a state law on the books that says it can't start processing mail-in ballots until the day of the election. But in 2020, as Pennsylvania election workers were still counting mail-in ballots, conspiracy theories about voter fraud started to take hold.

Misinformation that Trump repeated. There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Now think of this. You had 205,000 more ballots counted.

Then you had voters. Including in the speech he gave on January 6th, urging his supporters to march on the Capitol. Over 8,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were cast by people whose names and dates of birth match individuals who died in 2020 and prior to the election. Think of that. Dead people. Lots of dead people. Thousands. These claims were all untrue.

But four years later, Republicans are still spreading misinformation about the state's voting process, which has led to fears that Pennsylvania could, again, become a hub of election denial, particularly in a close race. So with that in mind, I wanted to talk to the state's top election official about what we could expect heading into Election Day. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, well, you sound great. We appreciate it, Secretary. I'm sorry. I thought that was only going. I thought that was only for me. Al Schmidt, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Can you hear me all right right now? He had this to say in response to our traditional soundcheck question. What did you have for breakfast this morning?

I don't eat breakfast because I'm too nervous about the election. Yeah, that doesn't seem great. Schmidt is a Republican. He spent a decade as an election official in Philadelphia and was the first person Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro publicly named to his cabinet last year.

I feel like some people are allowed to be nervous about the election, but I don't know if I love hearing that the Pennsylvania Secretary of State is nervous about the election. It's not really about being nervous. It's about being prepared on a professional level, on a personal level that involves, you know, like for any of us involved in election administration, you become a little bit neurotic. You want to make sure everything is done right. There's no redos. There's no do-overs. So there's

There's no eating in the morning for me anyway. I guess I wanted to start with the question I most have for you, which is when do you think we will know the results in Pennsylvania?

That really is the big question. But in this election, like any other, it's always come down to how close the results are, right? Whether you have mail ballot voting or you don't have mail ballot voting or whatever else. In 2022, for example, we know who won for governor in Pennsylvania by 10 or 11 o'clock at night because it wasn't close. And we knew who won for U.S. Senate by 1 or 2 a.m. because it wasn't close.

But Pennsylvania is at a unique disadvantage in that our counties cannot begin processing mail ballots until after 7 a.m. on election morning.

Other states, red states, blue states, even Florida, can begin that process days, if not weeks in advance. You know, you told NPR, quote, what we saw in 2020 is a window of time between the polls being closed at 8 p.m. on election night and the race being called as a period of vulnerability where people were seeking to undermine confidence in the results.

I wanted to ask about what you all are doing in case there's a similar lag this time. And how do you plan to deal with that period of vulnerability? Well, in terms of a lag or delay, it takes time to count millions of votes, especially when you can't begin until election morning. But looking back on 2020, Election Day went very smoothly in Pennsylvania. Very few problems at all.

It was a strain on the system as a result of how long it took to count enough votes before the outcome was clear for who won and who lost. And what we saw were bad faith actors seeking to undermine confidence in

in the results when they realized they were going to lose. But if that lag exists again, is there any way to preempt some of those bad faith attacks that I think we know would be coming?

Yes. I mean, part of it is expectation setting. Okay. And people knowing about what the laws are in Pennsylvania. It's as if everyone is suddenly discovering that different states have different laws that govern the process for counting votes, especially mail-in votes. But I want to stress a couple things have changed since 2020 that are important. Yeah. Many of our counties have acquired new equipment that will assist with sorting mail ballots, timestamping them, opening the envelope. Okay.

and all the rest. Counties have a lot more experience now also than they had in 2020, which was the first time Pennsylvania dealt with mass mail ballot voting. And thirdly, while mail ballot voting is still widely embraced in Pennsylvania, the percentage of voters voting by mail has decreased since that sort of peak COVID environment in 2020. So more and better equipment, more experience, fewer votes to count.

You know, I just want to get a quick... So every time somebody asks me this question, I can now say I talked to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and he told me, do we think it'll be quicker than last time? Well, I mean, if an election isn't close, you're going to know by 8.01. I'm saying, let's say it's just as close as last time, right? Do you think the processes have changed such that you all would count it quicker? I think those ballots will get processed more quickly than we saw in 2020. But predicting when you're going to know who won and who lost...

is really all about how close an election is. You know, there's already efforts underway to say this coming election is rigged. A lawsuit filed on October 11th alleges that Delaware County in Pennsylvania is using election machines with unauthorized software and someone behind a different piece of litigation

in the state. Alleged election fraud in a recent Q&A with Elon Musk in Pennsylvania, telling Elon, quote, we already have proof that election machines that are currently being used are fraudulent. We have videos right now I can show you of ballot boxes being stuffed here in Delaware County, Montgomery County, Chester County, and across the state. I wanted you to respond to that claim directly, considering it got so much airtime.

Well, it is – in terms of litigation, it's always impossible to predict turnout. It's always impossible to predict who will win or who will lose. But you can always count on an avalanche of litigation around election time. And all these conspiracies require no basis in fact whatsoever. And I know firsthand having visited –

Chester County and their Dropbox system, it's staffed by two people. They have body cameras on them. There's a camera on the two people who have body cameras. Like, I don't know how much more people could possibly want in terms of confidence in the integrity of the process.

But accusations really require no basis in fact. When they are litigated, just as they were in 2020, time and time again, the outcome has been consistent and in favor on the side of the truth. Mm-hmm.

After the 2020 election, Donald Trump attacked you on social media and his supporters threatened you and your family. I've seen you talk about that in other places. I just wanted to kind of return back to there. Like, what was the aftermath of the 2020 election like for you? And specifically, what was it like as a Republican who was then experiencing attacks from leaders in the Republican Party?

I think the most important thing for me and many others was not to let those threats be successful. The whole point of threats of violence or intimidation is really coercion, to try to keep you from doing your job. So if that happens, then you've let them be successful. I mean, you still have to make sure your family is safe.

You still have to make sure that you're safe and count on others to really look after your family and look after you. And it's appalling that we're even in an environment where we have to discuss those things. But really, it's a matter of not letting them succeed. And they would succeed if

if you let them get in the way of disrupting the core function of our representative democracy. I hear that, but I guess if I was running, you know, Philadelphia's election system four years ago and experienced the level of tax you did, I don't know if I would sign up to do it again four years later. I mean, I guess I'm asking, not only you're doing that, but you've taken on a bigger role as the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Like, what went through your head to say, not only do I want to keep doing this work, I actually want to expand it,

work with Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro on it. I mean, it does seem as if there was some piece of it that might have been motivating for you. Yeah, and I accepted the opportunity without hesitation to serve. I don't think there's any doubt that our country is at an important juncture right

in its history. And I think many of us took the strength of our democracy for granted and our electoral system for granted. And I think 2020 showed that it's far more vulnerable than maybe some of us had anticipated, right? I know, as well as anybody, how ugly all this can be. And it didn't cause me to pause for a moment. Have you ever thought about leaving the Republican Party?

I don't really talk about my personal political affiliations or anything like that. I've been a Republican far longer than Donald Trump has been a Republican. What do you want every person casting a ballot in Pennsylvania to know? I'll start there. That your vote matters and that your voice will be heard.

And if polls are to be believed, there are plenty of very close elections from President of the United States on down. So don't think for a moment that it's not important to vote. I would encourage voters in Pennsylvania to sort of tune out all the noise, all the contentiousness.

all of the ugliness around all this and not let it to dissuade you for a moment from casting your vote. And you should have confidence that your vote will be counted in Pennsylvania. What about folks across the country? What should they know as they're, you know, frantically refreshing their feed, looking for Pennsylvania's votes to come in? What would you explain to other folks about how to correctly understand the process that Pennsylvania will take on election night?

Our elections are run by professional civil servants, Democrats and Republicans alike, who are working night and day, well in advance of Election Day, to prepare, but especially from Election Day and election night onward, to count votes as expeditiously as possible and to do so with integrity. And they should have confidence in the results that they see from Pennsylvania. Yeah.

Thank you so much, Secretary. We really appreciate it. Nothing to thank. Schmidt exudes confidence that this election won't be like the last one, no matter if there's a lag time in counting mail-in ballots, and no matter if certain Trump supporters try to spread conspiracies and misinformation. But this week, just days after I talked to Schmidt, the voting fraud conspiracy that showed up at the Pennsylvania rally with Elon Musk found its way to Donald Trump's social media,

in the form of a post on Truth Social. Pennsylvania is cheating and getting caught at large-scale levels rarely seen before, Trump wrote. Report cheating to authorities. Law enforcement must act now. It wasn't surprising, but for me, it was a gut check on Schmidt's sense of optimism. This will probably be close, and it'll probably be messy.

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Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash NYT. oracle.com slash NYT. That's the run-up for Thursday, October 31st, 2024. And now, the rundown. The candidates are making their final arguments to voters. And on Tuesday evening... Good evening, America!

Harris gave an address at the Ellipse in Washington. Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say that is not who we are. That is not who we are.

casting herself as a unity candidate and returning to the theme of democracy being on the line. These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. This was Harris's biggest rally in her three-month campaign sprint, with more than 70,000 attendees, according to the campaign. And it came days after Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden.

and the intense backlash that's still unfolding. We are officially five days away from the general election, but we'll be back before then in special episodes leading up to election day. See you then. The Run-Up is reported by me, Ested Herndon, and produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Anna Foley. It's edited by Rachel Dry and Lisa Tobin.

With original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Sophia Landman, and Alisha Ba'i Tut. It was mixed by Sophia Landman and fact-checked by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Sam Dolnick, Larissa Anderson, David Halfinger, Maddie Maciello, Mahima Chablani, Jeffrey Miranda, and Elizabeth Briscoe.

Do you have questions about the 2024 election? Email us at therunupatnytimes.com. Or better yet, record your question using the voice memo app in your phone. That email again is therunupatnytimes.com. Thanks for listening, y'all.