Maria Figueroa, 42, and David Figueroa, 40, wait in line with their 3-year-old son, Santiago, outside a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in their city of Erie, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

PITTSBURGH — The 2024 presidential contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could come down to Pennsylvania, and nobody knows that more than the Pennsylvanians inundated by the campaigns.

The commonwealth, with its nearly 13 million residents and 19 Electoral College votes, carries the biggest prize for the winner among the seven swing states.

Pennsylvania’s polarized electorate is nearly equally split in its support for Democrat Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, and Republican Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance. The latest polling shows the race on a knife’s edge.

States Newsroom traveled throughout western Pennsylvania for five days in mid-October, speaking to voters from Johnstown to Erie, who shared their hopes and fears about the race. They talked about immigration and abortion access and inflation and fentanyl overdoses. Some were overcome with emotion discussing the high stakes in their decisions.

Erica Owen, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh, said Pennsylvania is a “microcosm” of U.S. political narratives.

“It is an economically diverse state. We have manufacturing, we have tech, we have agriculture, we have a whole range of economic industries that I think influence folks’ political preferences,” said Owen, with the university’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

Globalization and technology changed the Rust Belt state and transformed some communities “in a very negative way.”

“And so a lot of what we see is both the Republican and Democratic parties trying to reach those voters and offer a path forward to a better future,” Owen said.

Here’s what Pennsylvania voters said in interviews:

‘Divisive and full of hate’

Maria Figueroa waited in line with her family for hours Monday to see Harris speak at the Erie Insurance Arena on Oct. 14. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Figueroa, 42, said she would vote based on immigration reform and women’s rights, particularly reproductive health care.

“I’m the daughter of an immigrant. I’m a female, and my son is an IVF baby,” said Figueroa, whose family recently moved to Erie from northern Virginia.

In vitro fertilization has become politically hazardous for Republicans who court extreme anti-abortion voters.

Her 3-year-old son Santiago wore a t-shirt that read “IVF Babies for Harris 2024.” He clung to Figueroa and her husband, David Figueroa, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Ecuador.

Figueroa criticized Trump and Republicans as “very divisive, very full of hate, and they like to instill fear.”

“They make immigrants seem like this evil group of people that are here to take over the U.S. And I mean, all the immigrants I know are hardworking people that work in the restaurant industry, construction, and in California picking the vegetables,” Figueroa said.

Trump and Vance notoriously spread false accounts of legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, stealing and eating pets, and of Venezuelan immigrants overrunning Aurora, Colorado — thrusting both localities in the national spotlight for weeks.

Trump also blamed Haitian migrants for problems in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a Rust Belt town that has long been struggling with blight and population loss since the collapse of the steel industry and other manufacturing.

‘We live for our kids and our grandkids’

Tony and Karri Reda walked out feeling impressed after a Vance appearance in Johnstown. Vance spoke to a crowd of a couple hundred supporters Oct. 12 at JWF Industries, a manufacturer of tactical military vehicles and fuel storage tanks.

The married couple, both 60, who live just outside Pittsburgh in Collier Township, said “all the rhetoric about J.D. Vance and Donald Trump being weird” frustrates them.

“I was so impressed with him that if he were president I would be fine with it. I watched him in the debate. He blew me away,” Tony said. “I wasn’t real excited when Trump chose him. I thought he could have taken Nikki Haley and done something to bridge the female gap that he suffers with. But this guy’s as impressive as it comes.”

The couple — simply wearing red, no campaign gear — described themselves as “not crazy Trumpers.” They’re voting for the former president based on concerns over border security, fentanyl overdose deaths and inflation.

“We’ve seen so many people that we know, our friends’ kids that have passed away, we have family members that have passed away from fentanyl, and I think that’s a huge issue,” Karri said.

The drug overdose epidemic, driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, has afflicted the U.S. for years. Overdose deaths decreased in 2023 for the first time since 2018.

Tony added that concern about fentanyl overdose deaths “goes along with the border.” Chemicals to make illicit fentanyl follow the path from China to Mexico, where they are processed into the drug and then smuggled over the U.S. southern border.

“And the single biggest issue for me is keeping the border secure. I think there was a total lack of focus from this current administration with the border,” Tony said.

Choking up with emotion, Tony added “We want our grandkids to have what we had growing up.”

“We didn’t have all of this crazy rhetoric, with all the hatred back and forth, and inflationary cost and the border. We grew up in a great country, and I believe it’s gonna be a great country. I worry about our grandkids. We’re 60 years old. We’re not going to be here forever.”

‘All the good Republicans are gone’

Robin Kemling was headed into the Harris rally in Erie when she told States Newsroom she’s voting for the vice president to protect abortion access, and because she’s tired of “mean” rhetoric from Trump and his supporters.

“It’s us who care, I feel especially now, against those that just feel that they have a right to be oppressing. They’re mean. They’re mean-spirited people,” Kemling, 60, said.

“I’ve driven by a house since 2020, it has a huge sign up — It says ‘F,’ then has an American flag before ‘K,’ then ‘Biden.’ I mean, our kids ride them school buses by it,” she said.

“All the good Republicans are gone.”

She and her husband Greg Kemling, 68, who accompanied her to the rally, live in the Butler area. Greg criticized Trump as “just no good.”

“He’s useless, a liar, and lies about everything,” said Greg, a retired union worker at Hammermill Paper in Erie.

‘God knows he’s the best’

Debbie Cragle, 57, of Johnstown, said she believes a higher power has chosen Trump to lead the U.S.

“He’s going to be our president,” said Cragle, who attended Vance’s rally.

“What happened to Trump in Butler, thank God he survived. But it happened for a reason because God knows he’s the best man for the job, and he’s going to put him in office.” A gunman attempted to assassinate Trump on July 13 at a rally in Butler.

Cragle said she’s voting for Trump based on border policy, the economy and health care for veterans “first and foremost, because they are the heart of this country, and they are why we’re here.”

“We need to get Kamala out of office. We need to secure our borders, lower our taxes, lower inflation. We need to get this country back on the track that it was four years ago. And I believe that Donald Trump will definitely do it. He is the best man for the job,” she said.

Cragle said she’s “thinking about” voting by mail but prefers to vote in person because she believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Though Trump regularly repeats that he won the 2020 presidential election over Biden, there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Early voting has been underway in Pennsylvania for several weeks. The commonwealth’s 67 counties began distributing mail-in ballots after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court finalized which candidates could appear on the ballot.

‘No business in the bedrooms’

Theresa Zoky and Cindy Hoover were also waiting in a long line to enter the Harris rally on Oct. 14.

The two Benedictine Sisters of Erie said they’re voting for Harris for numerous reasons — protecting U.S. democracy, privacy rights and concern over Trump’s age.

“She will honor the Constitution. That’s basically what my whole thing is, because our government needs somebody that will know what the Constitution is about and follow it,” 82-year-old Zoky said, adding that Trump “breeds negativity.”

“He’s just not fit for office, simple as that.”

Hoover said she believes Harris “will take us forward instead of taking us backwards.”

“She will spread hope for our country, for our world, and I think she is very supportive of women, especially women to have a right to their own bodies. Men have no business, the government has no business in the bedrooms. It is a family issue,” Hoover said.

“I don’t believe Trump can run this country,” she continued. “I think he’s an old man. He’s ready to retire. If you talk about Biden being old, he’s worse.”

Jan. 6 ‘means nothing’

Walking out of Vance’s rally Saturday, Missy Brodt told States Newsroom that she’s over what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol.

The rioters injured about 140 police officers and delayed by several hours the certification of the 2020 presidential victory for President Joe Biden. More than 1,500 defendants have been charged with crimes associated with the attack.

“The Democrats, they just keep bringing up the same stuff over and over again with January 6th. It means nothing. You know what, it happened. As a human you’re allowed to protest. Okay, some things went out of the way, but leave it alone,” Brodt said.

“The Democrats still haven’t told me what they’re gonna do when they get in the office, all I hear is all joy and happy, happy,” Brodt said.

When asked by States Newsroom during his Johnstown rally if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power no matter who wins in November, Vance said, “Look, this is very simple. Yes, there was a riot at the Capitol on January 6, but there was still a peaceful transfer of power in this country, and that is always going to happen.”

Ed Sedei, a 56-year-old Trump voter in Johnstown, criticized the multiple journalists, including States Newsroom’s, who asked Vance questions about the 2020 election.

“They had some valuable time to ask some good questions today, but they asked the same old tired questions about if you think the election was rigged and whatnot,” said Sedei, who wore a t-shirt bearing the words “F- -k Harris & Walz.”

Traveling to Pennsylvania to see Harris

Renetta Johnson, 63, and her 88-year-old mother, Dorothy, will not be able to sway the Pennsylvania contest for Harris. The pair viewed themselves as lucky to live close enough to a swing state to see the vice president in person. They drove the nearly two hours from Buffalo, New York, to the Harris event in Erie.

Harris has been campaigning pretty much exclusively in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“(My mother) was born in 1936 in Gadsden, Alabama, and so in her lifetime? she’s seen the colored-only fountains, the white-only fountains. She’s seen someone hanging from a tree. And to come from that in her lifetime to come see the first woman vice president, and first woman vice president of color,” said Johnson, a Desert Storm veteran.

“So I brought her for all that she’s done, and to remind people that, you know, in her lifetime, those terrible things happened. And now look where we are today.”