AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Pennsylvania’s presidential and state primaries

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will go before voters Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s presidential primaries, a prelude to the November general election, when the commonwealth is expected to once again play a critical role in the race for the White House. Further down the ballot, voters will also select nominees in competitive primaries for Congress, the state legislature and three statewide offices.

Biden clinched the Democratic nomination and Trump clinched the Republican nomination on March 12, and neither faces serious opposition on the primary ballot. Nonetheless, both presumptive nominees have campaigned in Pennsylvania in recent days with their focus more on the November election and each other than on Tuesday’s vote.

Biden just completed a three-day campaign swing that began Tuesday in his hometown of Scranton and concluded Thursday in Philadelphia in an event with members of the Kennedy family. Days earlier, Trump held a rally in Lehigh County, his third visit to the state this year.

Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, was one of three critical swing states along with Michigan and Wisconsin that went narrowly for Trump in 2016 after almost 30 years of voting for Democratic presidential candidates. Biden won back all three states four years later with a margin in Pennsylvania of about 80,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million votes cast, and the states remain key electoral prizes this November.

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