Can Trump really win Pennsylvania? Stranger things have happened in 2016 | US news | The Guardian

"For decades, Republican presidential candidates have had the same relationship with the state of Pennsylvania that Charlie Brown had with a football.



With 20 electoral votes, the Keystone State has always been a tempting prize to aim for. But since 1988, in a geographically diverse state famously described by Clinton aide James Carville as “Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other and Alabama in between”, the GOP has seen that prize swept away from its sights.



As John Brabender, a veteran Republican consultant in the state, told the Guardian, Pennsylvania is simply tough for any Republican to win. He or she would always need to build a “strange coalition”, he said, “of blue-collar conservative Democrats that are in the western side of the state with moderate college-educated professional women in the eastern side of the state”.



Can Trump really win Pennsylvania? Stranger things have happened in 2016 | US news | The Guardian