A purple county in the middle of a swing state may be a dream for presidential candidates, but the reality of being a campaign’s most desired item — a possibly undecided voter! — is a nightmare for the residents of Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Voters here are hammered by political ads from all sides, and many are happy it will finally come to an end on Tuesday.
“It’s been insane,” says Wendy Hanley, a 49-year-old resident of Bensalem, as she leaves a polling place at a high school in the town. “That’s all we get in the mail. Phone calls, texts, TV.”
“People are coming to our door constantly,” she adds.
A passerby, who also just cast their vote, overhears the conversation and agrees: “They gotta stop all that sh**!” he shouts.
The road to the White House runs through counties like Bucks, which often flip between candidates and are used as signposts to determine who could win the race.
As The Independent drove into Bensalem, a township of some 63,000 people just 20 miles outside of Philadelphia, digital billboards were showing ads for Kamala Harris followed seconds later by ads for Donald Trump.
Doormats were filled with paper flyers and residents’ phones are regularly sent text messages from both campaigns. Even the lawn signs appeared to be split down the middle.
The town, which is more than 60 per cent white, sits not far from the Delaware River that divides Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The streets are lined with colonial-style homes, many of which are still decked out with Halloween decorations.
Pennsylvania is the biggest electoral vote state among the seven swing states, with campaigns vying for 19 electoral votes. A victory there means a candidate would only need to win over two other swing states to secure the 270 electoral votes to win the whole election.
An estimated $1.2bn has been spent on ads in Pennsylvania, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact — the first time in US history that a single state has seen more than $1bn in ads.
“You watch a TV commercial and its for one candidate, and then the next commercial is about the same candidate but against them. Back to back,” Andrea Erickson, a 45-year-old nurse who moved to Bensalem from Philadelphia some years ago, tells The Independent after she casts her vote.
What makes Bucks County so valuable is the make-up of the voting pool. Party registration is almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, and non-college educated white voters (the largest voting bloc in the country) make up about half of the electorate.
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro described Bucks County as “the swingiest of all swing counties in the swingiest of all swing states.”
