A road trip through Pennsylvania, the ultimate swing state

穿越终极摇摆州宾夕法尼亚州的公路旅行

Today in Focus

新闻

2024-11-05

29 分钟
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From traditional rural Republicans who won’t vote for Trump to Latino voters who will, Michael Safi finds voters taking surprising stances as he embarks on a road trip through the biggest swing state in the US. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

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  • This is the Guardian.

  • Today, as Americans prepare to vote a road trip across the swing state that might just decide it all.

  • Before we start, a quick heads up.

  • This episode contains a little bit of swearing.

  • This stretch of highway that I'm on right now in the middle of central Pennsylvania was first laid in the 1960s, but it hit planning issues and the project ran out of money and it wasn't finished.

  • At some point, the freeway just ended.

  • Drivers literally had to turn around and drive the other way.

  • It was like that for 40 years.

  • It came to be called the road to Nowhere.

  • In a few hours, polls across America will open and people in this country will decide where America is heading.

  • And for the two candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, their road to the White House will almost certainly have to pass through Pennsylvania, this crown jewel of American swing states that's backed the winner in every election for nearly 80 years, that has the most Electoral college votes of any swing state and is a place where a new political map is being drawn in front of our eyes and nobody knows what its final shape will be until Americans vote today.

  • From the Guardian, I'm Michael Safi.

  • Today in Focus a drive along the road to nowhere to find out what road America is on.

  • I arrived in Lancaster on Friday night.

  • It's a small city in central Pennsylvania, full of historic courthouses and churches, the birthplaces of old presidents and senators, the American flag swaying from buildings all over.

  • Over the past decade, as rents in bigger cities like New York or Philadelphia have grown, lots of younger people have moved to Lancaster.

  • It's had a renaissance.

  • The night that I was there, people were spilling out of local breweries, used bookstores were holding open mic nights, and I found myself in an art gallery in a converted warehouse.

  • That's where I met an artist called Lee, whose work was being shown there.

  • Has the politics of Lancaster changed over the past few years?