'New American voters have the power to sway the outcome' in Pennsylvania and beyond

It wasn’t even noon, and nursing home worker Hellen Conteh had already finished a double shift.

“You have to work, work, work,” she said with a smile. “It’s not easy.”

Conteh is an immigrant from Sierra Leone who lives just outside Philadelphia. She has been a U.S. citizen for two years, but this fall marks the first time she can vote in an election, and she plans to cast her ballot for Vice President Harris.

"She will… treat immigrants the same. Talk about wages, talking about mortgage,” Conteh said, explaining she is worried about rising prices. “We are on the same page,” she added.

Conteh is one of more than half a million naturalized citizens living in Pennsylvania. And she is part of a growing portion of the U.S. electorate, making up about one in ten eligible voters nationwide as of 2022.

It’s a voting bloc that could be crucial in the presidential race, especially in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, where President Biden won last time by a margin of about 1%, or 80,000 votes.

Those stakes were ever-present to a small group of immigrant advocates and new citizens, including Conteh, who recently gathered at a community center in the Philadelphia commuter town of Lansdale, Pa.

“We know that Pennsylvania will be one of the most critical states during this election, and new American voters have the power to sway the outcome,” Laila Martín García said to the group. Martín García is an organizer with the nonpartisan group National Partnership of New Americans or NPNA.

“We have the numbers,” she added. “Are we ready to translate those numbers into impact?”

It’s unclear how many new citizens are already registered to vote, however, roughly eight in 10 naturalized Pennsylvanians say they’re definitely planning on