JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania -- Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that his message to undecided voters in Pennsylvania ahead of November's general election is that his administration would bring prosperity to Pennsylvanians through common-sense approaches to energy, border security and strengthening manufacturing.
"We are going to bring the cost down on energy, and that is going to bring down the cost of everything," Trump said.
The former president added that he wants voters to know he would take the country to a better place not just on costs but on the massive influx of illegal immigrants who have crossed the southern border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration.
Data from the Department of Homeland Security showed encounters with illegal immigrants at the southern border soared after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris entered the White House, with at least 6.5 million migrants crossing the border in that time frame.
"They have taken over our cities," Trump said in reference to the increase in crime in the United States.
Trump was in Johnstown, a once-mighty manufacturing city located in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, just two days after Harris sat down with CNN host Dana Bash for her first interview in the 39 days since Biden was pushed out of the race and Harris was named the Democratic presidential nominee.
In the interview, Harris dismissed the notion that she would ban fracking and stated that she said so in her debate with former Vice President Mike Pence in 2020. But a quick read of the transcript shows Harris only said Biden would not ban fracking. She did not mention her viewpoint. Harris followed up her fracking claim by quickly saying her values on climate change have remained the same.
Trump questioned why, if Harris is so supportive of fracking, she hasn't lifted the pause on exports of liquid natural gas that Biden placed on the industry.
"I would lift that immediately," Trump said. "I would get rid of everything that she's done."
Trump said Harris is accountable for everything that has happened in the Biden-Harris administration, especially because Biden made a point of saying Harris was always the last person in the room with him on big and small decisions.
"Oh, she is totally accountable. She sat in every meeting. She was responsible for what happened in Afghanistan," Trump said of the chaotic exit.
"I look forward to debating her," he added after watching her interview.
Within minutes after the Examiner interview, Trump walked onto the stage at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena, where the iconic hockey movie "Slap Shot" was filmed, and spoke to a packed crowd of supporters. Outside, a screen was set up for the overflow crowd that filled several blocks of the main street leading to the arena.
Trump began by saying, "Starting on day one, I will seal the border. We will halt the invasion and deport the illegals."
He then went on to say he would cut regulations that started under the Biden-Harris administration, unleash American energy production, cut consumer energy bills in half, and make the country a more affordable place to live.
Two days earlier, his vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), was in Erie County, New York. A week before that, he was in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Trump has also been to Pennsylvania's Luzerne, York and Dauphin counties, all in an effort to shore up votes in the post-industrial communities outside the major cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Harris has been to western Pennsylvania twice. The first time, she visited one of her campaign field offices in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and held a small, invite-only rally with union members at the airport. The second visit was on Labor Day, when she joined Biden at another invite-only rally, with approximately 500 people, at a union hall in Pittsburgh.
Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), Harris' running mate, is set to visit Erie County in two days, but details of the 3 p.m. event are private.
To date, Walz's only interview was the joint one he did with Harris on CNN. The former high school teacher faced criticism in that interview for claiming "his grammar isn't always good" when trying to explain why he falsely said he had been in combat. Walz was never deployed in a war zone; however, he was deployed to Italy.
Trump is set to hold a town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, which will be hosted by Fox News. Harris is set to return to Pittsburgh on Thursday, but no details about the event have been made public.
Between 1992 and 2016, every Democratic candidate running for president won Pennsylvania. In 1996, former President Bill Clinton won by capturing 28 of the state's 67 counties. What was missed between that year and 2012 was that the state was slowly moving right by 0.04 percentage points every four years. Former President Barack Obama won Pennsylvania in 2012 by only 13 of the state's 67 counties.
The next 2016 Republican nominee only had to gin up approximately 2,000 more votes in the 10 rural post-industrial counties such as Luzerne, Erie, Cambria and Westmoreland. It didn't matter what happened in the heavily populated counties of Allegheny and Philadelphia. Instead, what mattered was the counties that Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee, failed to visit.
Trump went on to win the 2016 presidential election by gaining those counties. The fact that Pennsylvania had been trending right wasn't the only thing missed. It was that the coalitions of both parties had changed. Obama had shed the New Deal Democrats from his coalition in 2012, which is why he won the state by fewer voters than he did in 2008. And Trump's constant talk about the dignity of work and showing up in places no candidate typically does paid off.
Four years later, Biden picked off just enough of those heirloom Democrats to narrowly defeat Trump in 2020.
Polling shows Trump and Harris in a statistical tie in the state. At this same time in 2016 and 2020, both Hillary Clinton and Biden held leads over Trump, with Clinton eventually losing to him in Pennsylvania and Biden barely winning the state.
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