With its 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is the nation’s largest swing state. Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump have inundated the commonwealth with rallies and events, angling for the support of voters, who, from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, hold a remarkable range of values and beliefs.
In their national campaigns, Harris and Trump have fixated on wedge issues—immigration and abortion, respectively—to fire up their bases, and the media have focused on the culture war. But economic stability and the cost of living remain Pennsylvanians’ chief concerns.
Recent polling from my organization, the Commonwealth Foundation, illustrates this. While inflation has slowed, we found that voters still list it as the country’s biggest problem, with 34 percent saying that rising prices have affected their budgets “a great deal,” and 60 percent holding a negative outlook on the state’s economy.
Who will win these discouraged Pennsylvanians? We found that neither presidential candidate’s economic platform has fully persuaded a solid majority of the electorate. The candidates’ proposals—whether Trump’s tariffs or Harris’s price controls—haven’t eased voters’ fears about the increasingly unaffordable cost-of-living.
Pennsylvanians have indeed endured soaring prices, across several sectors. The state experienced the highest increase in grocery prices nationally in 2023, according to a Consumer Affairs report. At the municipal level, Philadelphia’s food-bill hikes outpaced even those of New York and Boston.
The state’s housing costs run off the charts. The median house price statewide surged from $195,500 in January 2020 to $308,800 in August 2024—a 45 percent rise. Meantime, Philadelphia’s collar counties—Delaware, Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery—are home to some of the nation’s most expensive real estate, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Voters also worry about their utility bills. About four-fifths said that their household energy costs increased in the past two years, and seven in ten worry about how to afford warming their homes in winter or cooling them in summer.
Tellingly, these households aren’t concerned about lawmakers addressing climate change. Quite the contrary: our polling shows that 67 percent of Pennsylvania voters say the federal government should prioritize affordable energy, compared with only 30 percent who want to focus on combating climate change. For most voters, saving money is more important than “environmental justice.”
This makes sense in Pennsylvania, where energy is a way of life. As one of the nation’s leading energy producers, Pennsylvania relies on gas production not only for its energy needs but also for its tax base and employment. It’s no wonder, then, that calls to restrict or prohibit certain energy practices—such as Harris’s 2019 promise to ban fracking—face fierce opposition statewide.
This resistance tracks with Pennsylvania’s overall response to energy production under President Joe Biden. Biden has tried to take credit for the recent record levels of gas and oil production on federal lands, though much of the permitting for this boom occurred before he took office.
Voters aren’t buying it. Nationally, more believe that the Biden administration’s climate policies have taken the country in the wrong direction. Eight in ten Pennsylvanians think that we should reduce regulatory burdens on the energy industry. Another statewide poll found 48 percent of Pennsylvanians oppose Biden’s ban on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, while only 30 percent supported it.
Even Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate delegation—Bob Casey and John Fetterman, both Democrats—have heard their constituents’ pleas and rejected the LNG ban as foolhardy. “If this decision puts Pennsylvania energy jobs at risk, we will push the Biden Administration to reverse this decision,” they said in a joint statement. Both Harris and Trump should take note: Pennsylvania’s energy sector has already been hobbled by such policies. Reviving it will be the key to persuading many voters.
The Keystone State has voted with the winner in ten of the past 12 presidential elections. To win this crucial battleground, candidates must address the kitchen-table issues, namely, making groceries and electricity bills more affordable. Whoever does so to voters’ satisfaction likely will secure the commonwealth—and, if recent history is any indication, the White House.
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