“We have more people employed here. … He doesn’t have one single headquarters in the state,” Biden told a few dozen supporters at a recreation center in Philadelphia. “You know how much money we’ve raised so far? We’ve raised a whole hell of a lot of money.”

Trump may not need the kind of organizing that Biden does, though, because Democrats rely more than Republicans on local get-out-the-vote efforts to drive turnout. So far, he still polls closely with Biden in the state despite having virtually no on-the-ground presence.

Trump has prioritized Pennsylvania in terms of the campaign events he does make. He was in Bucks and Lehigh Counties earlier this month and announced a May rally in Wildwood, a popular Jersey Shore destination for people from the Philadelphia region.

Biden’s strategy isn’t without pitfalls. At 81, he’s known to have verbal stumbles and to go on a tangent, which can reinforce the image of an elderly man. Some of the stories he tells stretch the truth or ignore it altogether — such as a tale suggesting that his uncle was eaten by cannibals. And with more exposure, there’s more opportunity for a gaffe to get attention, a frustration for Democrats who note Trump also goes off on tangents and has built a political brand around hyperbole, lies, and sometimes violent rhetoric.

“I don’t understand why he’s telling stories about his long-dead uncle and getting so many parts of it wrong,” GOP political consultant Chris Nicholas said. “If you don’t have all the details of an anecdote nailed down, just leave it out.”

Nicholas, who worked for former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, said campaigns typically go over anecdotes, which ones to use, and which ones might not land. Biden seems more free to be Biden — sometimes to his benefit, sometimes to his detriment.

Biden visits his Scranton home and sells empathy

Biden similarly has accentuated his personality and empathy in his 2020 campaign, which — partly due to the pandemic — also featured smaller campaign events.

His surrogates have said for months his best strategy is to get out from behind a podium.

“The president, in five minutes hanging out in someone’s kitchen in North Carolina, … got five million views on a platform I’ve never heard of,” Sen. Chris Coons said earlier this year. “Put on the quarter zip and put on some jeans and walk on into people’s houses and be Joe Biden.”

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