Trying to attract Eastern European votes • The expert: “Small, small factors influence”
According to the latest opinion polls in the United States, there could be as little as one percentage point separating Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.
The state is one of the swing states, where the election will be decided on the margin. As little as 100,000-150,000 votes can decide who wins there. The 2020 election was decided by just 81,000 votes in favor of Joe Biden.
Intensive election campaigns
122,000 Ukrainians live in Pennsylvania, of which roughly 90,000 are estimated to be of voting age, reports Kyiv Post.
This has meant that the democratic election campaigns are extremely intense there right now.
– In this super-even presidential election, all factors, large and small, that influence the voters in a wave master state like Pennsylvania can be of great importance, says USA expert Andreas Utterström.
So-called Super-Pacs, political mega-campaigns, are betting heavily on recruiting Ukrainian voters in the state, but also on other Americans of Eastern European background such as the 800,000 residents of Polish background living in Pennsylvania.
According to the Kyiv Post, there is no equivalent campaign in Pennsylvania by Republicans to enlist Ukrainian votes. However, it is not obvious that all Ukrainians support Harris, says Andreas Utterström.
– Many Americans are attracted by Trump’s anti-PK message and see him as a successful entrepreneur who can give the economy rocket fuel. It is difficult to know which factors the voters, once they stand in the polling booth, will value most. This applies regardless of whether you have roots in Ukraine or not.
No clear position
America’s Future Majority Fund – a Democratic fund-raising organization – in its television campaign in Pennsylvania highlights Kamala Harris’s support for Ukraine and has sharply criticized Trump’s contacts with Putin. In a TV ad, Harris says, among other things, that “If Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kiev now.”
Trump’s campaign has hit back, with spokesman Steven Cheung saying in a statement that: “Trump will do whatever is necessary to restore peace… and he is the only person who can make that happen.”
Trump has not made clear whether he supports Ukraine’s fight to win the war.