Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will hold a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania on Friday evening, his final event of the day.
Trump will speak from the Giant Center beginning at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The event can be viewed in the embedded YouTube player via Right Side Broadcasting.
Pennsylvania has long been considered a lock for Hillary Clinton, leading some of Trump’s supporters to wonder why he was bothering to waste his time campaigning in the state. But in recent days, this has started to turn around. A new poll from Harper has Trump and Clinton tied in Pennsylvania, 46 percent to 46 percent. The latest polls from Susquehanna and Gravis also have Clinton ahead by just two points, which is within the margin of error. Real Clear Politics has now moved Pennsylvania into the “tossup” column.
If Trump really can catch up to Clinton in Pennsylvania, that would be an absolute game changer. With Pennsylvania in Clinton’s column, Trump would need to win every single battleground state in order to have any chance of reaching 270 Electoral College votes. But Pennsylvania is worth 20 points, and so winning it would give Trump much more freedom. He could, for instance, win most of the swing states but lose Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa to Clinton. In that scenario, if he wins Pennsylvania, he’s still at 274 Electoral College votes, meaning that state makes up for the loss of three others.
Pennsylvania does not conduct early voting, but thus far, early voting results out of Ohio and Iowa have looked quite favorable towards Donald Trump.
This is currently the last rally Trump has scheduled in Pennsylvania. After this, the states he will visit between now and Election Day are Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado Iowa, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. It would not be surprising, however, to see the Trump campaign add one more Pennsylvania stop at the last minute. On Friday afternoon, for instance, they added that Colorado rally onto the schedule for Saturday at 9:30 p.m.