Voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania say that they're tired.
For months, they’ve been on the receiving end of hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign outreach as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump compete.
With less than three weeks to go until Election Day, Spectrum News spent three days in Western Pennsylvania speaking with voters and volunteers about the state of the race.
Some initial comments from voters?
“It’s been a lot of text messages.”
“I get probably five to 10 text messages a day.”
“Inundated with mail.”
“A lot of people are telling me to quit texting them.”
Drive around the greater Pittsburgh region and you see a barrage of campaign yard signs that also serves as a reminder that Pennsylvania matters.
The commonwealth has 19 electoral votes up for grabs, the most of the seven battleground states.
According to the tracking firm AdImpact, more money has been spent on political ads here than in any other state.
An average of recent polling by the website FiveThirtyEight shows the race neck and neck, with Harris up slightly in Pennsylvania, by less than one percent.
In the last week alone, Harris, Trump, and their running mates each made separate trips to the Keystone State to hold in-person campaign events. Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, visited three days in a row.
The Harris-Walz campaign tells Spectrum News it has 50 offices open in Pennsylvania and over 450 paid staffers. Since Harris entered the race in July, volunteers have knocked on over 1 million doors here.
The Trump-Vance team, meanwhile, says it has more than two dozen offices in Pennsylvania. The campaign would not say how many paid staff it has or doors it has knocked – only saying it has “thousands” of volunteers.
In the Pittsburgh suburb of Bellevue, Spectrum News went door-knocking with Bri Erskine, a volunteer who originally backed President Joe Biden and is now supporting Harris.
“There’s a lot more enthusiasm since the switch to Harris,” she said.
Erskine said the Harris ground game effort feels strong and accessible.
“I think they’re making a lot of efforts that I didn’t see when it was just the Biden campaign. I feel like there’s a lot more efforts to specific demographics,” she said.
Two hours north in Erie County, Michele Chereson is volunteering with the Trump campaign.
“We door knock and we make phone calls. Our door knocking experience has been very positive,” she told Spectrum News.
Chereson said a big focus this cycle is encouraging people who sat out the 2020 election to participate.
“We have really emphasized that your vote really matters. Every vote counts and we want your input,” she said.
There are also outside political groups making the rounds in Pennsylvania, like Americans for Prosperity Action, a Republican-aligned organization that is not knocking doors for the presidential race, but for Pennsylvania’s key U.S. Senate race.
Emily Greene, a senior advisor to the group, said AFP has 230 canvassers who have knocked on 850,000 doors in Pennsylvania. They are focusing on voters who might support Harris for president, but could be open to backing Republican Dave McCormick in his race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey.
“In Pennsylvania, we expect anywhere from 5 percent to 12 percent of voters to split their ticket,” Greene said.
While the Harris campaign is running a more traditional get-out-the-vote operation here, the Trump team is relying on several outside groups, like “Early Vote Action” led by GOP activist Scott Presler.
“We have cut in half the voter registration deficit in just four year’s time,” Presler told Fox News in an interview from Pennsylvania on October 15.
Trump fans Spectrum News met in Western Pennsylvania brought up his work to register Republicans.
“If you know who Scott Presler is, the guy is phenomenal. He’s doing everything he can to get Pennsylvania where it should be,” Ed Swierczyk said.
His neighbor, Winkie Ilic, felt similarly.
“Scott Presler’s amazing. He’s gotten so many of these other young people to get involved,” she said.
Trump supporters acknowledge the former president’s ground game in Pennsylvania has been smaller.
“Republicans were lagging behind. It’s gotten better; I still think there’s a little disparity there. Probably 60-40,” said Jim Kane, who had multiple Trump-Vance signs hanging outside his home.
But many said they’re not too worried, as Trump runs against Harris’ policy record.
“I don’t think he has to spend as much because they’ve done enough damage already,” Swierczyk said of Harris and President Biden.
Harris fans like Jonathan Worek, a registered Republican who is anti-Trump, said he thinks the vice president’s campaign is doing a lot, but can always do more.
“There’s probably some more convincible people here, at least in southern Butler County, that hopefully could sway to the voting for her direction, so I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” Worek told Spectrum News.
According to AdImpact, Harris and the Democrats have aired almost twice as many ads across Pennsylvania as Trump and the GOP.
Trump won this state by 44,000 votes in 2016 and then lost it by 80,000 in 2020, so turnout really matters.