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What will it take for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris to win Pennsylvania—arguably the most important state in the 2024 election?
The answer is simple. They must address the worries that I've heard from Pennsylvanians every day for the past few years. For most of that time, I worked in home construction, and virtually everyone I talked to about this told me the same thing: The cost of living is out of control.
Different people expressed this fear in different ways. Our potential homebuyers told us they couldn't afford the homes they wanted, because prices were soaring. Our workers were affected too, because even after big pay raises, the cost of groceries and everyday goods rose even faster. Our suppliers and small business partners told us that materials were getting more expensive, so they had to pass the costs to us. No matter where I went or who I talked to, the message was (and still is) the same: Life is unaffordable—and getting worse by the day.
My experience isn't unique. The Commonwealth Foundation, where I now work, has surveyed Pennsylvanians over the last two years. Without fail, our fellow citizens have named "Inflation" and "Cost of Living" as their top concerns. No wonder: They've seen double-digit price hikes and wages that can't keep up. As they get ready to vote, they're looking for a leader who will finally give them relief.
Naturally, both Trump and Harris are trying to speak to this concern. The current vice president has the steeper road, however, because for the past four years, she's been in power while prices have soared. What's more, the policies that she and President Joe Biden championed have actively made this crisis worse.
The Biden-Harris spending spree is a major culprit for inflation. The American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act threw trillions of taxpayer dollars at special-interest handouts, yet as research from MIT has shown, the deluge of cash directly contributed to soaring costs. Nearly half the inflation in 2022 alone can be chalked up to the Biden-Harris spending spree. While the administration tried to address concerns with the Inflation Reduction Act, the president himself admitted that the bill "has nothing to do with inflation" as it continued to cripple family budgets and business growth.
Harris knows this record hurts her chances in Pennsylvania. In response, she's promising to make life affordable by attacking price gouging, promising price controls, and expanding entitlements. While some may find these ideas appealing, they've failed everywhere they've been tried, inevitably leading to even higher costs for working families.
At first blush, Trump has an easier road to convincing Pennsylvanians that he'll bring back affordability. He can point to his record in his first administration, when the economy boomed and inflation stayed low. But there's no guarantee the former president will stick to the script. In the debate earlier this month, when Harris failed to give a plan for lowering costs, Trump quickly veered off-topic instead of hitting his record. That's not going to convince Pennsylvanians that a second Trump term will see the return of growing wages and stable prices.
Perhaps the most important thing that either candidate can do is give a full-throated defense of American energy. That matters because Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the country, and when our state is pumping at full throttle, costs inevitably go down.
Our natural gas leads to lower utility bills and lower prices of groceries and everyday goods, all of which require energy to create and transport. Natural gas is equally essential to making housing more affordable, because it lowers the cost of materials. Commonwealth Foundation polling found that 81 percent of Pennsylvanians say energy affordability is important to their decision at the ballot box.
Will either candidate seize this opportunity? Once again, it's harder for Harris, who previously promised to ban fracking, which is crucial to natural gas production.
Harris also serves in an administration that has banned liquified natural gas exports, prompting outcry even from Pennsylvania Democrats. And she still supports one of the first moves that President Biden made in office: killing the Keystone XL Pipeline. That action sent a chilling message to Pennsylvania's energy companies, which provide half a million jobs across the state: You could be next.
Harris has tried to address these concerns by reversing her position on the fracking ban. The question now is whether voters believe her. While Trump opened the floodgates of American energy in his first term, he must articulate how his policies would benefit working families. Especially in Central and Western Pennsylvania, voters want to hear someone say that we'll frack our way to a more affordable future.
Will energy alone win the election? Probably not. But it will play into the larger debate over skyrocketing prices and plummeting opportunity and optimism. While voters care about a great many issues, the candidate who convinces Pennsylvanians that he or she will get cost-of-living under control will surely win this crucial state.
Andrew J. Lewis is President and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania's free-market think tank.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
