Battleground America: How Pennsylvania could swing November's election for Trump or Harris

In the graveyard of American industry lie the communities that may decide this election, as ITV News US Correspondent Dan Rivers reports

ITV News' Battleground America series focuses on the people, places and policies that will pick the next president in the 2024 election.

Pennsylvania is the most critical swing state of all.

It carries the highest number of electoral college votes (19) and therefore could propel whoever wins here to the White House.

That's why both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have devoted so much time to campaigning in the Keystone State - the nickname given to this huge almost rectangular slice of middle America.

Despite containing the two large cities of Pittsburgh in the west and Philadelphia in the east, much of Pennsylvania is rural and conservative.

Democratic Party strongholds in the urban centres counter-act the deep red Trump country elsewhere. It leaves the state finely balanced.

In 2020, Joe Biden carried this state by just 80,000 votes. This time polls suggest it will be even closer. One demographic which will be critical will be the youth vote - 13% of registered voters are under 25-years-old.

Most lean Democrat but Donald Trump has been eroding that solid support. Fury over Biden's handling of Gaza has left some young people vowing to opt out of November's vote.

We filmed with a group of pro-Palestinian campaigners in Philadelphia who were so angry at the Biden administration's support for Israel, that they were willing to leave their ballot for president blank in November… even if that opened the way for a second Trump term.

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One told ITV News: "It's an intense feeling. I think everybody here feels personally connected. Like, whether we know people in Gaza or not.

"Our money, our tax dollars are, like, literally sending bombs to kill people… So I think that this is a very intense feeling, and it's not a decision that we make lightly."

On the other side of the state in Pittsburgh, ITV News speak to a student who is also conflicted about whom she should vote for. Harper Leary is Jewish, the daughter of lesbian parents with a long history of campaigning for the Democrats.

She will reluctantly vote for Harris but has refused to help door knock and is disillusioned with Harris' position on Gaza, the economy and more help for young people.

When she told her moms she was thinking of not voting at all, it provoked considerable strife.

"We argue a lot about politics just because we're all very strong, opinionated," she told ITV News.

"We all agree on the basics. I'm way more leftist, then they are very leftist. But I, as a young person, I think has a very I'm like set in stone about that kind of stuff. And we argued a lot about the fact that I was thinking about not voting.

"The fact that I was not, I was considering not voting was a big problem for them. They were like, 'isn't our marriage worth more than staying, that this other issue is more important?'

"'Wouldn't you rather have us married and, you know, be recognised by the state?' And I was like, 'yeah, that's a good point'. I definitely yeah. So we argue, but it's all, it's all, you know, friendly."

In the small industrial town of Rankin, I meet other young voters, who echo this sense of disengagement. Ryan Reynolds shares the same name as the movie actor, but his life couldn't be more different.

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He's a young black man struggling to make ends meet in a town with high unemployment rates for the young.

He too is not going to vote. The prospect of America's first black female president doesn't seem to move him either.

He thinks his vote won't matter and is withering about the choice before him.

When I push him, he says he if there was a gun to his head he would vote for Harris, but without such a compulsion, he's likely to only cast a vote in local positions and will leave the top of his ballot blank in protest.

These stories give a sense of the battle ahead for Harris here among the young. It's not just that many may choose not to turn out, but some may still go to the voting booth, and then opt out of choosing between her and Trump.

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