This Pennsylvania county picks presidents. Here's what it can tell us about 2024

ERIE, Pa. - On a recent weeknight in Erie, Pa., the local minor league hockey team hosted a playoff game for the first time in years. The home team Erie Otters faced off against the Kitchener Rangers from Ontario, Canada.

But even as fans watched the action on the ice, another kind of face-off isn't far from the minds of Erie County residents.

"You go down different blocks or different streets and you see something, you know, Trump or Biden," said 34-year-old Bekah Mook, who was at the game. "You can't even have a glass of beer unless something is mentioned Democrat or Republican."

"It's everywhere you turn," she said.

While most counties across the country predictably lean Democrat or Republican, Erie County, in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, is what election watchers call a "boomerang county." It boomeranged from Democrats to Republicans and back in recent presidential election cycles.

The county went for former President Barack Obama twice, then former President Donald Trump in 2016, and narrowly for President Biden in 2020.

Now everyone is trying to predict what will happen this year.

'How Erie goes, Pennsylvania goes'

Biden won Erie County in 2020 by less than 1,500 votes, or 1.03 percentage points. In 2016, the margin was less than 2,000 votes for Trump.

Mook, who works in a mental health practice, is one of those voters who flipped. She comes from a family of Christian Republicans, and once considered herself solidly in that camp. She supported Trump in 2016, largely due to her opposition to abortion.

But her feelings changed as she watched Trump in office.

"Now I'm looking at everything else. And there are so many more issues than just abortion," she said.

One thing that particularly bothered her