Donald Trump hasn't done any campaign events in the Philly 'burbs but he's headed to Montgomery County on Monday

Julia Terruso, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Oct 11, 2024

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PHILADELPHIA — Donald Trump is headed to Montgomery County on Monday.

The visit to Oaks for a town hall is the first public campaign event Trump has held in the Philadelphia suburbs of his 2024 campaign. It also marks the fourth event he’ll have done in Pennsylvania since going to Butler, the site of his assassination attempt, on Oct. 5.

Trump has recently focused on the kinds of white working-class places that helped get him elected in 2016. He attended a private fundraiser in Bucks County this spring but has focused his campaigning elsewhere. But the Philadelphia suburbs are a key part of the equation for winning the state. The suburbs are home to the largest number of voters in Pennsylvania. Suburban voters gave President Joe Biden the most votes of any regional group in the state in 2020 and Trump pulled his second-largest vote haul out of the suburbs, after rural parts of the state.

Oaks, home to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center & Fairgrounds where Trump will appear, is surrounded by Collegeville, King of Prussia, and Phoenixville, in Chester County, all places that have trended blue in recent elections. But Republicans looking to win statewide need to cut into those margins.

According to his campaign, Trump’s town hall will focus on the economy. A town hall format slated for Scranton on Wednesday turned into a rally featuring Trump’s standard rambling stump speech.

To appeal to more moderate voters from the Montgomery County region, Trump may need to hone his message. A quarter of Republican primary voters in Montgomery County voted for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the GOP primary months after she had dropped out of the race. They’ve become a bloc that Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is trying to appeal to in a closely divided state.

“Gas and diesel prices hit historic highs thanks to the Harris-Biden administration’s crackdown on American energy and Pennsylvania fracking,” the Trump campaign said in a release previewing the campaign event. “More broadly, Pennsylvania has been on the receiving end of America’s lopsided trade deals that have allowed foreign adversaries to hollow out our industry.”

With three weeks to go and the race in a dead heat, the weekly visits are ramping up.

Trump’s visit comes on the same day that Harris will campaign in Erie, a bellwether county on the other side of the state. The suburbs are a popular campaign stop this weekend with Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff and First Lady Jill Biden stumping for Harris there and Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, campaigning in Montgomery County on Saturday.

Both campaigns and outside groups supporting them have spent an avalanche of money in the state — more than in any other battleground. And they’ve racked up more visits here than anywhere else in pursuit of the 19 electoral votes that could very well determine who goes to the White House.