Here's why Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are coming to Philly suburbs: We're purple

With Vice President Kamala Harris planning to campaign in Bucks County on Wednesday and a town hall stop by former President Donald Trump in Montgomery County earlier this week, the Philadelphia suburbs are seeing a lot of attention in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.

With 19 electoral college votes on the line in Pennsylvania, the largest swing state in the country, campaigning in the commonwealth probably will only increase as Nov. 5 draws nearer and mail-in ballots already being sent out.

Bucks and Montgomery counties might especially be a critical focus for both Harris and Trump in the coming weeks.

Here’s a few reasons why.

A lot of votes are cast in Bucks and Montgomery counties

In both of the last two presidential elections, Montgomery and Bucks counties cast more ballots combined than in Philadelphia, which alone accounted for 10% of the 6.1 million votes counted in 2020 and 11.5% of the 6.1 million votes counted in 2020.

In Bucks County, about 345,042 votes were counted in 2016, with Hillary Clinton winning that race with 48.4% to Trump’s 47.6%, and 396,234 votes were counted in 2020, with President Joe Biden taking a four-point lead over Trump at 51.6%.

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Montgomery County was a stronger lead for both of the last two Democratic candidates, Biden taking almost 63% of 510,157 votes counted and Clinton securing 37% of the 438,652 votes counted in 2016. Trump lost Montgomery County by more than 20 points both years.

Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016, almost by the same margin that Clinton won Bucks County, while Biden took Pennsylvania in 2020 by a 1.16% margin.

Republicans gaining lead in Bucks County

Bucks County is a target for both campaigns because it’s not only the most purple Philadelphia collar county in terms of past election results, but also in terms of registered voters.

The suburban collar counties of Philadelphia collectively make up a little over 3 million, or about 21%, of Pennsylvania’s almost 9 million registered voters, according to voter data from the Pennsylvania Department of State updated on Oct. 7.

Unlike Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, Bucks County is the only Philadelphia suburb where Republicans outnumber Democrats, albeit by a very thin margin of less than a percentage point difference between them.

Out of 486,740 voters in Bucks County, Republicans make up about 41.6% of voters while Democrats make up about 41% of voters. Democrats lost their voter advantage over the GOP for the first time in at least a decade in July.

That makes Bucks County one of the most narrowly split counties in Pennsylvania, next to the 0.46% lead Republicans have on Democrats in Luzerne County.

The Pennsylvania suburbs could be less secure for Democrats

Most of Pennsylvania's 67 counties lean more red than blue, with Republicans leading Democrats by an average of about 30 points in 55 counties.

Democrats lead in just a dozen counties by an average of just over 14%, which includes Philadelphia, it’s neighboring counties except for Bucks, and Allegheny, Centre, Erie, Dauphin, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Monroe, and Northampton counties.

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Party doesn’t dictate how a person votes, but the outcome of the 2020 election closely resembles the voter margins between the two major parties by county.

Trump won by an average margin of almost 39 points in almost all of those GOP-leaning counties, while Biden took 12 counties in 2020 by an average margin of about 15 points — almost all of those counties Biden won are also currently leading for registered Democrats.

Harris’ campaign told NBC News on Monday that the Democratic candidate is going to focus on the suburbs of Pennsylvania, an area the campaign dubbed “our own mini ‘blue wall” before a campaign event in Erie County.

Trump made Bucks County a repeat campaign destination over the years and almost came to Bucks County in September before canceling a visit to Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown.

Chris Ullery is the Philadelphia Hub Data Reporter for the USA Today Network. Reach him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter at @ulleryatinell.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Philadelphia suburbs become focus of campaigns for Trump and Harris