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Michelle Cottle

By Michelle Cottle

Photographs by Damon Winter

Ms. Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion and is a host of the podcast “Matter of Opinion.” She reported from Lancaster, Pa.

Let’s talk about why President Biden is spending three days in Pennsylvania this week — a lot of time by campaign standards. By now, you probably know that just a few swing states are pivotal to winning the White House in November. For Mr. Biden, the Keystone State is the most crucial.

It’s not just that Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes — the biggest haul of any battleground. And it’s not just that it is part of the Blue Wall, the string of industrial states that helped Democrats win the presidency for years until Donald Trump cracked it in 2016. This fight is also personal: Mr. Biden is a native son of Pennsylvania who spent part of his childhood there, identifies with its working-class, regular-folk vibe and gets intuitively how the state is a microcosm for America. If Scranton Joe cannot hang onto his Rosebud, he is probably in big trouble nationally.

The goodish news for Mr. Biden is that he appears to be running neck-and-neck here with Mr. Trump, according to polling and campaign insiders, unlike in some other swing states where he is struggling a bit more. The tougher news is that many Democrats anticipate a tick-tight race, and it’s not yet clear what will energize and turn out voters. “My big fear is that people are exhausted by the chaos,” says U.S. Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, who hails from one of the suburban “collar counties” around Philadelphia.

So what does Team Biden need to do to prevail? High-profile visits like Mr. Biden’s three-day swing this week are important. But they are a tiny piece of what it takes to win a place as sprawling and complicated as Pennsylvania. To get a clearer sense of the puzzle, I set about picking the brains of over a dozen strategists, organizers, elected officials and other state political experts. A smattering of common themes and strategies bubbled up — some easier than others for the president and his campaign to tackle.

I started by approaching Gov. Josh Shapiro, a member of Mr. Biden’s campaign advisory board who is considered a Democratic rock star since winning the state by nearly 15 points in 2022. (Mr. Biden squeaked by here in 2020 by 1.2 points. Though, to be fair, Mr. Shapiro had a truly lousy opponent.)

One story stuck with me from talking with the governor. It’s a bit canned, sure, but it made me think about some of the hurdles Mr. Biden is facing. Asked if anything took him by surprise in his own run, Mr. Shapiro told me about his first TV ad, which showed him sitting around the Sabbath dinner table with his family, and how, afterward, voters would come up to him to share their own faith stories and traditions. “The ad allowed them to speak to me in a personal way,” he recalled.

While Mr. Biden can emote with the best of them, many voters, especially among his base, just aren’t feeling that personal bond these days. Finding ways to reconnect, to make people feel understood and listened to, is one of his trickiest challenges.

Part of this will be letting voters know that he has been working for them. It’s important to spell out for people “what you delivered, how your work positively impacted their lives,” Mr. Shapiro says of his experience. It also means addressing the........

© The New York Times