The Supreme Court refused Friday to intervene in the Green Party’s efforts to put presidential candidate Jill Stein on the ballot in the battleground state of Nevada for the November election.

The Nevada Green Party had asked the justices to halt a ruling from the state’s high court that keeps Stein off the ballot. The state court said the party failed to meet the requirements for ballot access and that signatures it collected had to be invalidated.

The justices denied the request to intervene in a one-sentence order that did not explain their reasoning. There were no noted dissents.

Stein’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was filed by attorney Jay Sekulow. He also has represented former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee who is locked in a tight race with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Green Party candidates are “wrongfully ripped from the ballot and Nevadans who would vote for them in this election are robbed of the opportunity to do so,” Sekulow told the Supreme Court in the party’s emergency request.

Nevada’s Democratic Party initiated the lawsuit to exclude the Green Party from the ballot in June, claiming the party had used the wrong form to collect the necessary signatures from registered voters.

“At issue is not a mere technical violation for the use of the wrong form,” lawyers representing the Democrats told the Supreme Court. The signature-gathering requirements, the filing said, are designed to prevent fraud and protect “the fairness and integrity of the political process.”

Nevada’s Attorney General Aaron D. Ford (D) told the justices that it was too late to intervene in the state court’s decision because of the compressed timeline to print and mail ballots before the Nov. 5 election. Federal law requires military-overseas ballots to be sent at least 45 days before the election. In addition, the state sends mail ballots to Nevada voters between Sept. 26 and Oct. 23.

Requiring the state to reprint and send new ballots would “create an insurmountable problem: It would undermine the integrity of Nevada’s election,” Ford said in a court filing.

Presidential elections have been decided in recent years by slim margins, leading to concerns among some Democrats and Republicans that a third-party candidate could affect the outcome in battleground states this year. Groups affiliated with both parties have challenged some third-party bids to get on the ballot.

But third-party efforts have struggled this campaign season. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign in late August. Cornel West, another independent candidate, has faced financial and legal troubles getting on ballots.

The Green Party is on the ballot in 27 states, including five battlegrounds. Stein has run twice before. In 2016, she drew 1.4 million votes nationally as the Green Party nominee — a small fraction of those received by Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton. But Democrats viewed Stein as a spoiler in a number of battleground states where the race was close.

Although Nevada has not voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 2004, support among Latino and young voters for President Joe Biden had been receding in the state before his exit from the race, according to a Fox News poll from June. That poll and others found Trump with small leads over Biden. Political operatives from both parties believe the contest between Trump and Harris in Nevada will be close.

Earlier this month, a divided Supreme Court of Nevada sided with Democrats and ordered the secretary of state to keep Green Party candidates off the general election ballot. The court called the party’s use of the wrong form, which did not include an affidavit verifying the registration status of those signing the petition, an “unfortunate mistake.”

The Green Party’s lawyer said it was wrongly advised by the Secretary of State’s Office to use the form for ballot initiatives and referendums — not for minor party ballot access. The party collected and submitted 29,584 signatures.

In the filing, the party called the state court’s action “extraordinary, denying … both due process and equal protection under the federal Constitution.”

In response, the Democratic Party’s lawyers, led by Philip A. Irwin of Covington & Burling, said the Nevada law is clear and that the mistake on the part of the Secretary of State’s Office was inadvertent.

“A civil servant’s mistake,” the filing says, “does not give rise to a due process right to be excused from the strictures of a clear law.”

Buried in his efforts to convince a sympathetic audience that he deserved to return to the White House, Donald Trump made an important admission about a long-standing frustration.

“With all I have done for Israel,” he said at a campaign event ostensibly centered on antisemitism, “I received only 24 percent of the Jewish vote. Now think of this. I really haven’t been treated very well, but that’s the story of my life.”

Indeed it is.

In Trump’s estimation, he deserves both credit and unwavering support from Jewish Americans because of the things he did on Israel’s behalf as president. He said as much at the event.

“I said, I’m the best friend they ever had. And still in 2020 — so remember, I got 24, 25 percent [of the Jewish vote in 2016]. Now, I did all of these things and I got 29 percent,” Trump complained. “Think of it. So I wasn’t treated right. But it’s not me that’s been treated badly. It’s Israel.”

This is a recurring theme of Trump’s politics. Making his pitch to skeptical constituencies, he cobbles together accomplishments that he then promotes as exceptional, as the pinnacle of what those groups might have wanted. Black Americans want opportunity zones. Jewish people want the American Embassy to be in Jerusalem. He delivered on these things — but they still don’t love him? How can that be?

The answer, consistently, is that what Trump delivers isn’t necessarily what those constituencies seek. A few months after the 2020 election, Pew Research Center published research showing the gap between Trump’s presentation of his accomplishments and how Jewish Americans viewed them. Most Jewish Americans gave him credit for being friendly to Israel, yes. But a plurality saw him as unfriendly to them. A majority indicated that his handling of Israel policy was fair or poor, contrary to Trump’s apparent belief.

Trump’s exposure to the interests and desires of Jewish Americans is largely centered among conservative and right-wing Jewish people, a minority of the American Jewish population. He tends to conflate Jewish interests with Israeli interests, often explicitly.

He did so at another point in his comments.

“You have to defeat Kamala Harris more than any other people on Earth. Israel, I believe, has to defeat her,” Trump told the audience. “You know that? And I’ve never said this before, I’m thinking, Miriam” — referring to his ally and donor Miriam Adelson — “more than any people on Earth, Israel has to defeat her.”

What attracted the most attention in his comments, though, was Trump’s claim that the 2024 presidential contest depended on Jewish voters.

“After having done all of that, having been the best president, the greatest president by far, by far — a poll just came out; I’m at 40 percent,” Trump said. “That means you got 60 percent voting for somebody that hates Israel. And, I say it. … It’s only because of the Democrat hold or curse on you. You can’t let this happen.”

A recent Pew poll showed Trump trailing Vice President Kamala Harris by a nearly 2 to 1 margin among Jewish voters.

“I’m not going to call this as a prediction, but in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” he added a bit later. “If I’m at 40 percent? Think of it, that means 60 percent are voting for Kamala who in particular is a bad Democrat.”

This is a ridiculous assertion. PRRI’s recent assessment of the religious composition of the country finds that only about 2 percent of the U.S. is Jewish. What’s more, the Jewish population is heavily centered in states that will not determine the outcome of the election: New York, New Jersey, Florida and California.

PRRI created estimates of the religious composition of each county in the country. In the seven swing states that are likely to determine the outcome of the election, the Jewish population makes up an even smaller percentage of the population, maybe a bit over 1 percent. There are probably fewer Jewish people living in Michigan than the margin of Trump’s loss there in 2020, for example.

It is the case that counties with a larger percentage of Jewish residents tend to vote more heavily Democratic. The counties with the highest percentages of Jewish residents backed Biden by about 27 points in 2020.

We should remember, though, that Trump’s view of the overlap between politics and religion is driven less by conservative Jewish allies than White evangelical Protestants. At the Thursday event, Trump touted the extent to which many religious conservatives value Israel.

“You have a lot of good Christians there that love Israel, by the way,” he said. “In many ways, they love Israel more than Jewish people of Israel, which is shocking, but nevertheless, we’ll take it, right?”

This is often because conservative Christians view Israel as an essential element in the second coming of Christ. It is not always because of an abundance of sympathy for Jewish people there or in the U.S.

Trump’s political base is far more heavily rooted in the evangelical vote than the Democrats’ are in Jewish voters. In the counties with the highest percentages of evangelical residents, according to PRRI, Trump won in 2020 by 64 points. About a third of all of his votes came from evangelical voters.

Notice that the vertical axes on those charts differ. Here’s how the densities of Jewish and evangelical residents compares — or, really, doesn’t compare at all.

To suggest that any loss will be a function of the 2 percent of Americans who are Jewish — or the just over 1 percent of swing-state voters who are — is to present Jewish Americans as wielding disproportionate power over American politics. It suggests that Jewish Americans have some sort of control over systems that is detached from reality.

It is, in essence, exactly the sort of rhetoric about Jewish people that is at the heart of many antisemitic arguments. The sort of rhetoric echoed by people like Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina. Robinson was revealed earlier Thursday to have literally referred to himself as a “black Nazi” at one point in the past. This development was not mentioned at the “antisemitism” event, nor has Trump rescinded his fawning endorsement of Robinson’s candidacy.

To observers who aren’t Donald Trump, it is easy to determine a reason that Jewish Americans might not view him as a robust ally.

For more than a week, Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio, has been tweeting about the influx of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. It started with a false rumor on a Facebook post about migrants eating cats. Former president Donald Trump, in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, then asserted: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Amid the backlash, Vance has doubled down, insisting he has raised legitimate issues that were ignored or belittled by the media. Here’s an assessment of the facts — and misinformation — in his posts on X.

“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”

— Sept. 9 (11 million views)

Analysis: This tweet was posted at 10:22 a.m. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that on the morning of Sept. 9, Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck fielded a call from a Vance staff member asking whether there was any truth to the rumors. “I told him no,” Hack said. “There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”

A Vance spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Vance has not taken down the tweet, even though his staff knew the rumors had been denied around the time he posted it.

“In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false. Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here. That local health services have been overwhelmed. That communicable diseases — like TB and HIV — have been on the rise. That local schools have struggled to keep up with newcomers who don’t know English. That rents have risen so fast that many Springfield families can’t afford to put a roof over their head.”

— Sept. 10 (16 million views)

Analysis: There is a significant factual inaccuracy in this tweet, which attempts to provide some cover for the first tweet by acknowledging that it’s possible the rumors might be false.

Vance wrote that “a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here.” But it was an accident — a Haitian migrant, in the country legally but with a foreign driver’s license, accidentally veered into a school bus, killing a child. Nathan Clark, whose son Aiden died in the collision, issued a public plea that his son’s death not be labeled a murder. “Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose,” he said. A Vance spokesman noted that the migrant was found guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide.

The New York Times on Sept. 3 reported on Springfield and the Haitian influx, and there is a basis for some of Vance’s statements. According to the New York Times report:

• “The community health clinic saw a 13-fold increase in Haitian patients between 2021 and 2023, from 115 to 1,500, overwhelming its staff and budget.”
• “The school district has hired about two dozen teachers who are certified to teach English as a second language and several Haitian-Creole interpreters, thanks to federal and state pandemic-related funds.”
• “Michelle Lee-Hall, executive director of Springfield’s housing authority, said that the affordability problem had been aggravated by landlords pivoting to Haitians who were willing to pay higher rent.”

As for the rise in tuberculosis and HIV, the Vance spokesman did not respond to questions about how this could be attributed to Haitians. Clark County health records show the numbers for TB are low, so small changes look like big percentage jumps. There were three cases in 2021, two in 2022, six in 2023 and a preliminary count of four in the first half of 2024. As for HIV, there were 12 cases in 2021, 15 in 2022, 29 in 2023 and a preliminary count of 26 in the first half of 2024. But overall, cases of sexually transmitted diseases have fallen, records show, with syphilis in an especially sharp decline — from 126 cases in 2022 to 45 in 2023. A preliminary count for 2024 recorded 21 syphilis cases.

“In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community. Kamala Harris’s immigration policy aims to do this to every town in our country.”

— Sept. 13 (13.8 million views)

Analysis: Vance falsely claimed there was a “massive” rise in communicable diseases. The county health records show a decline in reportable infectious-disease cases per 100,000 people, with the case rate in 2023 the lowest since 2015. (Vance’s spokesman said he was referring to TB and HIV, discussed above.)

His source for rent prices was a Reuters report, citing a Zillow rent index, showing an increase in rental costs of 25 percent from May 2022 to July 2, compared with a national average of a 10 percent increase.

As for crime, Springfield’s annual report shows that public service calls fluctuated, from 59,520 in 2021 to 50,501 in 2022, and 62,521 in 2023. Vance’s spokesman pointed to data on the Ohio crime reporting system for murders, violent crime and property crime.

The number of murders was five in 2021, six in 2022, and nine in 2023 — so small that rendering a percentage increase would be misleading. There were 704 incidents of violent crime in 2021, 743 in 2022 and 751 in 2023, while reported incidents of property crime was 2,388 in 2021, 2,725 in 2022 and 2,837 in 2023. It’s misleading to make conclusions from such a limited set of crime data and, again, there is no documented link to Haitian migrants.

Finally, there’s the question of how many Haitians have moved to Springfield. Vance uses a high estimate of 20,000.

In a July letter to Congress, seeking financial assistance, Heck wrote that “the Haitian population has increased to 15,000 — 20,000 over the last four years.”

But the city of Springfield’s website says there are “12,000 to 15,000” immigrants. “Although it is impossible to provide an exact number, based on data provided from numerous sources, such as the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Springfield City Schools, area health care providers and social services agencies, the total immigrant population is estimated to be approximately 12,000 — 15,000 in Clark County,” the website says on a page devoted to questions about migrants, not specifying whether all were Haitians.

Heck did not respond to an email asking about the discrepancy.

Public information about enrollment in Springfield schools shows that the head count has increased in recent years but is still below the level in 2020. There were 7,716 students in 2019-2020, but that dropped to 7,099 in 2020-2021, the school year after the pandemic. There were 7,107 students in 2021-2022, 7,277 in 2022-2023 and 7,415 in 2023-2024.

“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves. Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

— Sept. 14 (6.4 million views)

Analysis: Vance quickly elevated a post by right-wing influencer Christopher Rufo, who claimed he had found evidence that “African” migrants in Dayton had eaten cats. Rufo touted an unconfirmed story, with a fuzzy video, and a dubious link to Springfield.

The same day, Dayton Police Chief Kamran Afzal issued a statement denouncing Rufo’s report: “We stand by our immigrant community and there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets. Seeing politicians or other individuals use outlandish information to appeal to their constituents is disheartening.”

“Kamala Harris dropped 20,000 Haitian migrants into a small Ohio town and chaos has ensued. Housing shortages have caused rents to skyrocket, hospitals are overrun, schools are ill-equipped to teach students who don’t speak English, and the roads are unsafe as unlicensed drivers have caused a massive increase in roadway accidents. It’s a disgusting indictment on our news industry, but I’m going to continue speaking up for my constituents and the disastrous effects that Kamala Harris’s open border policies are having on their lives.”

— Sept. 15 (4.1 million views)

Analysis: Vance refers to a “massive increase in roadway accidents,” but the Ohio crash statistics system indicates that the number of motor vehicle crashes recorded in Clark County has declined since 2021. The Vance spokesman pointed to recent statements by Springfield’s mayor about “reckless operation speeding and distracted driving of motor vehicles” and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, of “a very significant problem” because, he said, many Haitian migrants have “not gone through really any formal courses” to drive in the United States.

Vance also falsely said “the American media didn’t give a damn about any of this until President Donald Trump mentioned Springfield at the debate.” As noted, the New York Times published a lengthy article — which appeared on the front page — a week before the debate.

“The American media has been caught laundering verified foreign disinformation to smear me and President Trump and it’s disgusting.”

— Sept. 17 (1.9 million views)

Analysis: After bomb threats repeatedly forced the evacuation of schools and government offices, Vance posted a clip of himself making this statement: “And you know what the governor of Ohio came out yesterday and said? Every single one of those bomb threats was a hoax. And all of those bomb threats came from foreign countries. So the American media, for three days, has been lying and saying that Donald Trump and I are inciting bomb threats when in reality the American media has been laundering foreign disinformation. It is disgusting.”

This is incorrect. Dan Tierney, press secretary for DeWine, told The Fact Checker that some calls — less than five — were made from within the United States. Of 34 bomb threats, the “vast majority” were from foreign counties, most from a single country that he would not identify. But Vance chose to ignore that at least some calls were not from overseas — and that the calls didn’t take place until he and Trump trafficked in misinformation.

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Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are locked in a statistical tie in Pennsylvania, according to a Washington Post poll of a state that many analysts see as the battleground most likely to determine the outcome of the presidential election.

One week after a debate that Pennsylvania voters widely say Harris won, she is favored by 48 percent of both likely voters and registered voters, while Trump is supported by 47 percent of voters in both categories. Third-party candidates are not a major factor in the race, The Post’s poll finds: After excluding minor candidates, Harris and Trump are both at 48 percent among likely voters, with Harris at 48 percent and Trump at 47 percent among registered voters.

More than 8 in 10 registered voters in Pennsylvania reported watching at least some of last week’s presidential debate, including similar majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents. Twice as many debate-watchers said Harris won the debate than said Trump, 54 percent to 27 percent, with another 17 percent saying neither won.

Pennsylvania has been narrowly divided every time Trump has been on the ballot. In 2016, he won the state by less than a percentage point. Four years later, President Joe Biden carried it by one percentage point on his way to capturing the White House.

The state’s closely watched Senate race also appears to be tight. Democratic Sen. Bob Casey has the support of 47 percent of likely voters, while Republican challenger Dave McCormick is backed by 46 percent. Excluding third-party candidates, the two are tied at 48 percent each. Democrats cannot afford to lose Casey’s seat if they hope to keep their narrow majority in the chamber.

The presidential results are similar to the Post average of recent polls, which shows Harris with a three-point edge in Pennsylvania. Since last week’s debate, Harris led Trump by six points in a Quinnipiac University poll and held a three-point edge in a USA Today/Suffolk poll, while a Marist College poll showed the race tied. Most polls have found Casey with a clearer advantage in the Senate race than the Post poll did, although a CNN poll conducted before the most recent debate also found an even contest.

The Post poll finds that voter enthusiasm in Pennsylvania is extraordinarily high, with 93 percent of registered voters saying they are certain to vote. Similarly, 78 percent of Pennsylvania voters say they are “extremely motivated” to cast ballots this year. Among the most motivated voters, 50 percent support Trump while 49 percent support Harris.

Voter turnout surged between 2016 and 2020 in Pennsylvania, and the composition of the electorate will be crucial again this year. Among likely voters who voted in 2020, according to state voting records, Harris is at 49 percent and Trump at 47 percent. Among those for whom there is no record of voting in 2020, Trump has a slight advantage, 48 percent to 43 percent.

Protecting American democracy is the most important issue to Pennsylvania voters, with about 7 in 10 saying it is “extremely important.” About 8 in 10 Democrats say this issue is extremely important, compared with nearly 7 in 10 Republicans and almost 6 in 10 independents.

But Pennsylvania voters disagree about which candidate is best equipped to protect democracy, with 48 percent saying Harris and 45 percent choosing Trump.

Trump has continued to say falsely that the 2020 election was stolen. Overall, 55 percent of voters in Pennsylvania say Biden won the election “fair and square,” including 93 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents. But 69 percent of Republicans say Biden won “due to voter fraud.”

More than half of voters also say the economy and crime and safety are extremely important issues. Immigration, health care and abortion rank lower, although more than 4 in 10 voters say each issue is extremely important in their choice.

Trump is seen as better able to handle the economy (51 percent to 42 percent), immigration (52 percent to 39 percent) and crime and safety (50 percent to 43 percent). On which candidate would be better at helping middle-class workers, the split is Harris at 48 percent and Trump at 46 percent.

Harris holds a big advantage on abortion (52 percent to 34 percent) and a smaller edge on health care (48 percent to 40 percent). Among Pennsylvania registered voters, 64 percent say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 26 percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Among likely voters who cite the economy as extremely important, Trump has the support of 65 percent, and among those who say immigration is extremely important, he has the support of 80 percent. Harris is favored by 70 percent of those who say abortion is extremely important and 56 percent who say the same about health care.

Overall, Pennsylvania voters have a dour view of the national economy, with 66 percent saying it is either “not so good” or “poor,” while 33 percent say it is either “excellent” or “good.” They have a more optimistic view of their own financial situations, with 60 percent positive and 37 percent negative. Among voters who say the economy is bad but their pocketbooks are okay, Trump leads by 34 percentage points.

On other issues of importance to the Pennsylvania economy, a big majority (68 percent) of voters favor hydraulic fracturing — often called “fracking” — for oil and gas production. As a presidential candidate in the 2020 campaign, Harris said she opposed fracking but has since said she has changed her view and would not ban it as president.

Trump has called for a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, but a majority of Pennsylvania voters oppose that proposal. Given three options, 41 percent of Pennsylvania voters say they favor deporting most undocumented immigrants, while 48 percent say that undocumented immigrants instead should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.

Another 7 percent say these migrants, many of whom have been living in the United States for years, should be “left alone by authorities unless they are convicted of a violent crime.”

About 3 in 4 Trump supporters (76 percent) say most undocumented immigrants should be deported to the countries they came from, while more than 3 in 4 Harris supporters (79 percent) say they should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.

Both candidates have tried to position themselves as agents of change. Voters’ perceptions of what kind of change each might bring reflect the overall divisions in the state and the partisan divide in the country.

Looking at Trump, 45 percent of voters say he would bring change for the better, 46 percent say he would bring change for the worse and 6 percent say his election would not change the country.

With Harris, 11 percent say her election would not change the country, while 43 percent say she would bring change for the better and an identical percentage say she would bring change for the worse.

Harris is viewed favorably by 47 percent of Pennsylvania voters, while 44 percent have an unfavorable view of her. Perceptions of Trump are net negative, with 49 percent unfavorable and 43 percent favorable.

The two Senate candidates are both roughly split between favorable and unfavorable: Casey at 41 percent favorable to 40 percent unfavorable and McCormick at 37 percent favorable to 35 percent unfavorable. Both have high shares of voters saying they have no opinion about them, 26 percent for McCormick and 18 percent for Casey.

The politician in the poll seen most positively by Pennsylvania voters is Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who was under consideration to be Harris’s running mate until she selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Shapiro has a favorable rating that is about 2-to-1 positive (51 percent favorable to 26 percent unfavorable).

Though Biden won the state in 2020 and lived in Scranton as a child, he remains unpopular with Pennsylvania voters, with 41 percent saying they approve of the job he is doing as president and 57 percent disapproving, including 49 percent who strongly disapprove.

In the choice between Harris and Trump, the Pennsylvania electorate splits along predictable lines. Among likely voters, men support Trump by nine percentage points (52-43 percent) while women favor Harris by 10 points (53-43 percent).

Partisans are firmly behind their nominees, with 9 in 10 Republicans backing Trump and about 9 in 10 Democrats favoring Harris. Among independents, it’s Harris at 46 percent, Trump at 45 percent.

Trump has a 10 percentage-point lead among White Pennsylvania voters, narrower than his 15-point margin in 2020 exit polling. Trump leads by 26 percentage points among White voters without four-year college degrees (smaller than his 32-point advantage in 2020 exit polls), while Harris leads by 11 points among White college graduates (similar to Biden’s nine-point margin in 2020).

White women split evenly between the two candidates, while White men favor Trump by 21 points. Voters of color back Harris by 72 percent to 20 percent.

Among likely Black voters, Harris is at 78 percent to Trump’s 17 percent. While the margin is hefty, she is doing worse than Biden did in 2020. In the election four years ago, Biden won 92 percent of the Black vote in Pennsylvania compared with 7 percent for Trump, according to network exit polls.

Suburban likely voters split 50 percent for Harris and 46 percent for Trump; suburban women favor Harris by 15 points while suburban men lean toward Trump by seven points. Harris leads among urban voters by 24 points, while Trump leads by 30 points among voters in small towns and rural areas.

Harris leads Trump by 12 percentage points among voters in union households and by a similar 11-point margin among union members themselves. In 2020, network exit polls found union households split 49 percent for Biden and 51 percent for Trump.

Trump holds double-digit leads over Harris among Pennsylvania Catholics (58 percent to 40 percent) and Protestants (55 percent to 40 percent). Harris leads by an even wider margin among voters with no religious affiliation, 71 percent to 23 percent.

Harris fares best around Philadelphia, winning 73 percent support among voters in the city itself and 55 percent of voters in the Philadelphia suburbs. Northeast counties split nearly evenly between the candidates (47 percent for Harris, 48 percent for Trump) while 59 percent of central Pennsylvania voters favor Trump. Trump also leads with 57 percent support in western counties excluding Allegheny County (home to Pittsburgh), where voters split 49 percent for Trump and 45 percent for Harris.

This Washington Post poll was conducted Sept. 12-16 among a random sample of 1,003 registered voters in Pennsylvania drawn from a statewide voter database. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points for both the overall sample and the sample of likely voters; all registered voters were assigned a probability of voting to produce likely voter results. Sixty-four percent of the sample was interviewed via cellphone, 15 percent on landlines and 21 percent responded to the survey via a link texted to their cellphones.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is betting on podcast interviews, appearances at sports events and targeted digital advertising to reach uncommitted young, male voters, whom his campaign has identified as his best path to victory in November.

The campaign has homed in on a group of undecided voters that makes up 11 percent of the electorate in battleground states, according to an analysis that Trump advisers presented to reporters in August. Those voters are mostly men under 50 who identify as moderates, and they are predominantly White but include more Latinos and Asian Americans than the general population, said campaign officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their strategy.

This focus has led Trump to some unfamiliar settings for a former president. He discussed recreational drug use and addiction with Theo Von, a former MTV host turned popular podcaster. He also appeared on podcasts hosted by controversial YouTuber Logan Paul, whose sponsors include the maker of intimate grooming products, and Adin Ross, who rose to fame streaming himself playing video games on Twitch until the platform banned him for homophobic and other hateful content.

Trump has repeatedly attended Ultimate Fighting Championship matches and chose UFC chief executive Dana White and former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan to introduce him at the Republican National Convention. Trump also took credit for blessing the winning car at a Formula 1 race in Miami.

The campaign’s emphasis on younger men in the race against Vice President Kamala Harris plays to Trump’s celebrity appeal and, to some people, an archetype of a certain image of masculinity. It also acknowledges his consistent underperformance with suburban and older women, who used to be more reliable Republican constituencies.

“That is beyond smart because they’re talking about a population that is underrepresented in actual votes on Election Day,” said Josh Holmes, a prominent Republican strategist. “To the extent they can capture and motivate them, that is a significant demographic. It’s a totally untapped marketplace.”

But Trump’s hunt for disengaged young men carries risk because they vote less frequently — a gamble that reflects how much ground he has lost with more traditional Republican voters.

“If they don’t turn out and he’s alienated the people who are more consistent voters, then you’re really in a pickle,” said Amy Walter, editor in chief of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Harris’s campaign is also targeting young men with television commercials during college football, NFL and MLB games, and soccer matches, as well as ads on sports talk radio and content on social media and the video game app Twitch. Democrats said they have been able to redouble their emphasis on young men since Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket because she made up ground with young women where he had been lagging.

But the Harris campaign does not define its target voters as narrowly as the Trump team, and advisers argue she has more room for growth. In addition to voters under 50, who are more likely to be men and who include more people of color than the general population, the Harris campaign also sees opportunities among White women without a college degree who are especially affected and motivated by reproductive rights, as well as moderate Republicans and independents who are uncomfortable with Trump and his MAGA transformation of the GOP.

“That is a target group, it’s not the primary target group for Democrats,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who has advised Biden and Planned Parenthood, said of young men. “The formula for success for Democrats is to win women by more than they lose men,” Lake added.

The long-standing partisan split along gender lines is growing even more pronounced this cycle. New York Times-Siena College polls of six swing states in August found that young men backed Trump by 13 points, while young women favored Harris by 38 points. An ABC-Ipsos poll this month found that Harris led by 38 points among young female likely voters under 30. By contrast, Harris edged Trump by three points among young male likely voters under 30.

In a deeply divided electorate, the slice of voters that the campaigns believe could swing either way has grown vanishingly small — just about 2 percent, according to a Harris campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. The greater challenge is to mobilize disengaged Americans who are deciding whether to vote at all.

“The traditional image of a swing voter is a real anachronism: It’s not really like there’s just these people who sit in Wisconsin and they’re trying to decide between the Republican or the Democrat every single cycle,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to Barack Obama. “Some of them are choosing between Kamala Harris and Trump. More of them are probably choosing between one of the two candidates and the couch.”

Because young voters are historically part of the Democrats’ core coalition, if Trump significantly outperforms with young men compared with 2020, Pfeiffer said, “it makes the math impossible for Harris.”

In 2020, men ages 18 to 29 favored Biden 52 percent to 41 percent, according to the national network exit poll. A different exit poll, AP VoteCast, found that the group supported Biden 56 percent to 41 percent, similar to the result in a recent Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll.

Trump has also mentioned privately that his 18-year-old son Barron is a big fan of Von, according to a person close to the former president. But such interviews reflect a more deliberate strategy of putting the former president in front of audiences that skew young and male and don’t typically tune in to political news.

“There is a reason why we’re doing all of those things,” a Trump campaign official said. “These are not people that sit up watching ABC, Fox and CNN.”

In interviews with young male voters at recent Trump rallies, several brought up his podcast appearances, including with the Nelk Boys, Logan Paul and Adin Ross. Others said they watched his interview with Elon Musk on X and his interview with Von. They liked that Trump attends UFC matches and expressed admiration for his persona. Many cited the economy as their top concern and said they admired that Trump spoke his mind.

“I thought it was really cool, like Theo was talking about how he’s a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and Trump was kind of asking him questions out of curiosity because Trump claims to have never drank or anything before. I believe it, personally, but I thought that was cool,” said Evan Lahey, 21, who attended Trump’s town hall in La Crosse, Wis. “He’s kind of just a guy’s guy, which appeals to a lot of people.”

“Even though he’s like way older than Kamala, he’s way more in touch with our demographic,” Lahey added.

Researchers from both parties said young men are more likely to get information from nontraditional sources such as social media or streaming. They are also more likely to show interest in third-party candidates or split their tickets.

Akshay Salvi, 35, of the Philadelphia area, said independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was his favorite, but Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump did not influence him and he was now supporting Harris. He said abortion weighed heavily on his vote — an issue that Harris campaign officials say resonates with young men and women alike.

“Trump, he had his four years and people didn’t like the way he controlled power, so he was not elected the next time, in 2020,” Salvi said. Overturning Roe v. Wade, he said, was “like going back 20 years, maybe 50 years. That’s not the way women should be treated.”

Molly Murphy, a Harris campaign pollster, said the challenge is persuading these voters to support Harris, “because they don’t know her very well.”

“Part of the reason these younger voters have always been core to our target universe is, over time, they’ve become more and more turned off by politics and less trusting of institutions,” Murphy said. “And so they’re actively trying to ignore us all.”

The Harris campaign said its outreach to young voters includes campus organizing and digital ads emphasizing the right-wing policy blueprint known as Project 2025. The campaign is targeting suburban women with a bus tour and television ads focused on reproductive rights. For people of color who are undecided or vote inconsistently, the campaign is appearing at historically Black colleges and universities, partnering with faith leaders, using a Latinos-focused WhatsApp channel and running ads tailored to Black Americans and Spanish speakers.

“It’s never like, ‘Hey, if we just say this one thing to this group of voters, we’re going to be fine.’ It’s never that and it’s not like one day they all move in unison,” Harris campaign senior adviser David Plouffe said. “Trump believes that if he goes on certain podcasts and says he likes UFC and says he’s a tough guy, he’s somehow going to over-perform, but he looks incredibly weak right now, and almost, I think, to the extent that some voters are laughing at him.”

Scott Clement and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has accelerated his preparations for his Oct. 1 debate against Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), participating in policy sessions and mock debates in his home state and on the road.

Walz’s team has enlisted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to play Vance in debate rehearsals, reprising his role from four years ago when he stood in for then-vice president Mike Pence during Kamala Harris’s practice sessions, according to multiple people familiar with the debate process who requested anonymity to describe confidential preparations.

Fueled by diet Mountain Dew and dressed in casual wear — cargo pants and a T-shirt — Walz was in a Minneapolis hotel on Wednesday, practicing with Buttigieg and taking notes on a yellow legal pad, the people said. The two have not yet held a full 90-minute mock debate, although they are expected to do so closer to Oct. 1, when Walz and Vance will meet in New York City for the debate hosted by CBS News.

Strategists for both parties say vice-presidential debates rarely affect the presidential race in a significant way. But with Harris and former president Donald Trump having held their one and likely only debate instead of three, and the undercard coming five weeks before Election Day, it may carry higher stakes.

“There are two key pivotal moments in a running mate’s time on the campaign: One is the convention speech and one is their debate performance,” said Matt Paul, who served as the campaign chief of staff to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) when he was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016. “It seems this year, without a full presidential debate schedule and where this is falling in the race, it has somewhat raised the stakes of this debate.”

Walz, who often emphasizes his experience outside elected office on the campaign trail, has sought to tamp down expectations for his performance next month, following the timeworn tradition of trying to lower the bar for such events.

“Yes, I need to,” Walz said on MSNBC when asked if he had started thinking about his own debate shortly after the Sept. 10 Harris-Trump debate concluded. “Look, he’s Yale Law guy. I’m a public school teacher. So we know where he’s at on that.”

He added: “You will hear me talk, like I have, about things that impact Americans — making sure they have the opportunity to thrive, making sure that we’re being factual in how we talk about that. And so I’m looking forward to it. I will work hard. That’s what I do. I fully expect that Senator Vance, as a United States senator, a Yale Law guy, he will come well-prepared.”

For Walz, the debate will be the latest high-profile moment in his remarkable rise from a career as a public school teacher to becoming the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee. It will also thrust him into the sort of traditional political setting that he has largely eschewed.

During his interview with Harris’s vetting team for the running mate slot, Walz told her aides he had never used a teleprompter. Walz’s folksy speaking style can resonate with audiences, and he has participated in debates when running for Congress and governor, but allies say debates may not be his strongest setting.

People familiar with Walz’s preparations say the governor, who was little-known nationally before Harris selected him in early August, sees the debate as an opportunity to continue to introduce himself to the nation and highlight Harris’s agenda. He and his aides view the debate as an extension of the campaign rallies and interviews he has participated in over the last month, and they expect him to focus not only on the contrast between Harris and Trump, but also between him and Vance.

Walz, who energized Democrats when he began referring to Republicans as “weird,” has leaned into his Midwestern roots and his experience as a football coach, part of an appeal to White, working-class voters in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He has ratcheted up attacks on Vance in recent weeks, slamming him for supporting Project 2025, a policy agenda compiled by the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican administration.

“This debate will serve as another clear opportunity for Governor Walz to present Vice President Harris’ winning vision of a New Way Forward to the American people who are ready to turn the page on Donald Trump,” Emily Soong, a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, said in a statement.

Vance has attracted an usual amount of attention since become Trump’s running mate, not all of it positive. He came under fire for previously calling Democrats like Harris “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable.” In recent days, President Joe Biden and others have criticized him for embracing the falsehood that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets.

At the same time, Walz will have to defend his own record against Vance, who has attacked the Minnesota governor for his handling of protests in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd, for ostensibly misleading the public about his military service, and for an array of liberal policy positions.

In contrast to Walz, who has only participated in a handful of interviews, Vance often appears on cable TV and has regularly taken questions from journalists, which allies view as effective practice for the debate.

A spokesperson for the Trump-Vance campaign declined to comment.

As soon as the Harris campaign selected a team to support her running mate — even before Walz himself was chosen — those aides started thinking about how to prepare for a vice-presidential debate. The team tapped Zayn Siddique, a lawyer at the firm Paul Weiss who worked in the Biden White House and helped both Biden and Harris prepare for debates, and Rob Friedlander, who recently departed the White House where he had worked on the National Economic Council, to oversee the debate prep.

The two have worked closely with Liz Allen, Walz’s campaign chief of staff, and Chris Schmitter, Walz’s chief of staff in the governor’s office and a senior adviser on the campaign.

A number of current and former Obama and Biden administration officials are also engaged in the preparations, including Kate Berner, a longtime Biden aide and a senior adviser to Walz’s team, who has been working with Buttigieg on playing Vance; and Michael Tyler, the Harris campaign communications director. Karen Dunn and Rohini Kosoglu, who co-led Harris’s debate preparations, have also consulted with Walz’s team on the preparations.

Buttigieg, who was among those vetted to serve as Harris’s running mate, is widely considered one of the Democratic Party’s best communicators, winning particular plaudits for sparring with hosts on Fox News. A White man from South Bend, Ind., Buttigieg is once again playing the role of a conservative Republican from the Midwest serving as Trump’s running mate.

Philippe Reines, who was initially cast as Vance when Harris was still Biden’s running mate, transitioned to play Trump in Harris’s presidential debate preparations. Harris’s performance against Trump was praised by Democrats and even some Republicans, as the vice president succeeded in getting under Trump’s skin as she needled him on his crowd sizes and legal troubles.

After the debate ended, Harris challenged Trump to another debate, and the former president wavered before declaring that since he had prevailed in the first matchup, he saw no reason for a second one.