Former US president Donald Trump is heading to the battleground state of Pennsylvania for a rally and a fundraiser just days before he is set to go on trial in New York over an alleged hush money scheme.
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He will be closely followed by President Joe Biden, who will make three Pennsylvania stops during the week, speaking first in his hometown of Scranton about his push to reform the US tax code.
With 19 electoral votes - one of the highest counts among all 50 states - and voters that swing between backing Democrats such as Biden and Republicans such as Trump, Pennsylvania is a top prize in the 2024 presidential election and is likely to receive many more visits in coming months.
Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020 by less than 1.5 per cent, or roughly 80,000 votes, after Trump beat Hillary Clinton there by less than 45,000 votes in 2016.
State opinion polls taken in March swing from showing Biden with a 10-percentage-point lead to Trump up four points, election data site FiveThirtyEight shows.
Democrats are betting on a strong turnout in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs, a region that accounts for 33 per cent of all voting registrations, to offset losses throughout much of the rest of the state.
Trump and Republicans are looking to run up huge margins in less populous, largely white counties to offset urban votes.
Biden, who has been to Pennsylvania four times so far this year, will also travel to the Pittsburgh area and Philadelphia across three days, the White House said on Friday.
Trump is expected to be in Manhattan on Monday for the beginning of his first criminal trial, a case involving hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The trial could last several weeks.
Trump's Saturday rally at Schnecksville Fire Hall targets the Lehigh Valley, a mix of Rust Belt cities, sprawling suburbs and rural towns.
It includes Northampton County, one of two counties Biden flipped in 2020, which has long been a reliable bellwether of statewide success.
"If you win Northampton County, you are likely to win the state," Chris Borick, a political science professor at Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg University, said of Trump's rally.
"It's that important of a location."
The former president will attend a fundraiser before his rally in Bucks County, another bellwether region that Biden narrowly won in 2020.
The event is hosted by Jim Worthington, a wealthy gym owner who has pressured Trump to stop criticising mail-in voting.
Roughly 200 people are expected, and the event should generate several million dollars, according to two sources familiar with the event.
It will be a "razor-thin race", Borick predicted.
Pennsylvania is a sprawling, politically complex place where voters historically have often elevated consensus-minded statewide candidates, a history that could affect the closely watched US Senate race.
Incumbent Bob Casey, a Democrat, will battle Republican Dave McCormick, a wealthy former hedge fund executive, one of just a handful of races in 2024 that will decide who controls the Senate.
Australian Associated Press
