Once a solid county for Democrats in statewide gubernatorial elections as well as federal elections for president, U.S. Senate, and Congress, Erie [County, Pennsylvania shocked the world when the county went from supporting President Obama by a whopping 16 percentage points in 2012 to supporting Donald Trump in 2016 by 40,000 votes. Four years later, Biden would win the county by roughly the same amount; in between, Democrats Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman would also win the county for governor and U.S. Senate, and a Republican won the county executive’s race for the first time in decades. In short -- win Erie, you win the state.
It's more of an "interviewing the man on the street" -- or, rather, the voters hanging out at the butcher shop -- piece. On a quick look, I don't see any county-specific presidential polling, so I can't say how it's going.
But I find it interesting that Erie County is starting to pop up as a "bellwether" with others, as it has with me for several years now (here and here, for example).
We can talk about "double haters" and "swing voters" all day long, but as I've written a bazillion times, the real key is getting out your vote. Erie County seems to be a recurring illustration of what happens when a candidate does, or doesn't, manage to do that.
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