Electronic billboards along Route 22 in eastern Pennsylvania, usually a flickering procession of ads for car dealerships, are now flashing images of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump. Billboards along Interstate 94 near Milwaukee feature Republican ads blaming Ms. Harris for rising prices.
In Arizona, college students are opening their phones to text messages reminding them to vote for Ms. Harris. And those watching the Raiders-Browns game on television in Nevada one recent Sunday were repeatedly interrupted by a much higher-stakes matchup: Ms. Harris versus Mr. Trump, played out in a march of political ads across their screens at almost every commercial break.
For the vast majority of voters, the presidential election is playing out at something of a distance, to be followed on television, news sites, news sites, TikTok, Instagram, X, Substack, Instagram, Facebook and X and blogs.
But as the presidential campaign moves into its final stage, voters in just seven states are living on the campaign battlefield. They have been buried by barrages of television advertisements, texts, internet pop-up banners, dinner-hour telephone calls, get-out-the-vote door-knocks, candidates swooping through remote parts of their states and tense conversations with co-workers and neighbors.
That is true in all seven of the swing states that will decide the winner of the Electoral College — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona — but particularly in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, where critical Senate and House contests are also being fought.It seems as if there is a sign on every corner in Clark County, Nev., with the name of a candidate for something, from the White House to a local school board, from Congress to City Council.
“I’m a Pennsylvania native and have been through many election cycles in a state that is no stranger to high-profile competitive campaigns, but I haven’t seen anything like what is playing out here this fall,” said Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg University in Allentown, Pa. “I share a laugh with my mailman when he drops off our mail because of the size of the pile of mailers he brings each day, and I’m getting used to evenings and weekends full of knocks on my door.”
This year’s campaign offers a vivid reminder of how much the playing field in national elections has shrunk, giving voters in a handful of states a ringside seat to the fight for the presidency — as well as disproportionate influence over the outcome. Fewer than 20 percent of the estimated 244 million Americans eligible to vote this year live in those seven swing states.
The campaigns are tailoring their messages, appeals and itineraries to reach any remaining undecided voters in these seven states
In Georgia, Ms. Harris is attacking Mr. Trump over his record opposing abortion rights in her appeals to women, while Mr. Trump’s allies are warning that crime will spike should Ms. Harris get to the White House. In Michigan, with its concentration of auto manufacturers, Mr. Trump is assailing Ms. Harris for her support of electric cars, while in Nevada, which has been battered by a housing shortage, she promotes her pledge to address soaring rents.
Not that every ad is geographically targeted: Across all the swing states, Mr. Trump is attacking Ms. Harris on immigration and transgender issues. An ad assailing Ms. Harris over her support for trans rights, showing images of her and a drag queen, aired repeatedly during the Raiders-Browns game.
For those who happen to find themselves in the battleground states this fall, the campaign has become unavoidable. Ms. Harris is campaigning around Atlanta this weekend and returns to Georgia on Thursday with former President Barack Obama. Mr. Trump heads to Georgia for his own campaign swing on Wednesday.
In Green Bay, Wis., the advertisements come in clustered barrages: A single commercial break during NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday morning was all political ads. In one, Ms. Harris assailed what she called lies her Republican opponents have told about her. A Republican advertisement attacked Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, and promoted her challenger, the businessman Eric Hovde. Another ad attacked a Democrat running for a competitive State Assembly seat.
Standing on the porch of his North Las Vegas home last weekend, Dennis Fritts, 72, said he had long ago made up his mind to support Mr. Trump.
He described the torrent of television ads as “stupid” and said no amount of pro-Harris messaging would budge him.
“My remote has a really strong mute button,” he said.
So many leaflets are being mailed to Wisconsin voters that Mr. Hovde came up with a trick to break through the clutter: The vote-for-Hovde mailers are printed in green and yellow, the familiar colors of the Green Bay Packers.
Many voters say they try to tune it all out. Cary Wiesner, 67, of De Pere, Wis., said he mostly uses streaming services that have no advertisements.
“I try to avoid all political commercials,” said Mr. Wiesner, who said he would vote all Democratic this year. “I don’t even want to watch the commercials for the people I support. They’re more like propaganda.”
Others have just become inured to it and are counting the days until Nov. 5.
Steve Srubas, 42, a Green Bay architect, said he relies on his 85-pound dog to dissuade people who come to his door, at the end of a day when he has already navigated the pop-ups on Instagram or the texts from Mr. Trump, whom he does not plan to support.
As for those candidates and canvassers who are not frightened off, he might answer. “I can’t imagine I’d hear anything that’s going to sway me, but I try to be as polite as possible when I ask them to go away,” Mr. Srubas said.
Chris Martin Jr., 21, a Harris supporter who lives in the suburbs of Flint, Mich., has become resigned to the blur of Trump and Harris yard signs when he drives to work and the political ads when he logs on to Instagram or Facebook. It is more difficult, he said, to navigate the fraught conversations with neighbors and acquaintances in an environment where the campaign seems to have landed in everyone’s backyard.
“Sometimes it feels like right now that you have to kind of watch what you say,” he said.
A more pressing question is whether the law of diminishing returns could kick in: whether more becomes less, for voters who have already made up their minds or are not listening to any ads or anyone trying to persuade them how to vote.
But both campaigns — and particularly that of Ms. Harris, who has raised more than $1 billion for this contest — have the money to spend. (And that is not even taking into account the millions of dollars being poured into these states by independent political action committees.) There are effectively only seven states where it can be spent with results. And with the polls extremely close, swaying a handful of voters here or there could very well determine the winner.
“The costs to either activate a voter or shift a preference here is very high,” said Professor Borick, of Muhlenberg. “But given the deep pockets of the campaigns, very slim margins in the races and the winner-take-all nature of the elections, it seems clear that the candidates will not err on the side of moderation.”
So it is that the candidates, in search of new or less frequent voters, are fanning out across relatively remote parts of these states, where many people are getting a first chance to see an actual future president or vice president.
Senator JD Vance, who is Mr. Trump’s running mate, appeared a few weeks ago in a speck of northwest Georgia at a venue that usually hosts weddings, not White House aspirants. When Ms. Harris campaigned in Savannah in August, it was the first time in decades that the city had hosted a presidential nominee in the post-convention stretch. (Mr. Trump canceled a visit planned for Oct. 22.)
And for those who weren’t at home watching the Raiders-Browns game on television, planes were dispatched over Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nev., to write “Vote Kamala” in the blue sky, for the benefit of the thousands of viewers — and voters — in the stands below.
Sam Park, a Democratic state representative from the Atlanta area, said that voters “understand why they’re receiving so much mail and are seeing so many campaign ads on TV.” But, he added, that does not mean they want all this attention to last.
“Folks are looking forward to the election being over,” Mr. Park said. “It’s just a lot of constant pressure that folks are feeling.”
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