Thread by @theintercept

Pennsylvania's Democratic Party isn't ready for this fight, but its people might be interc.pt/2HnQiHm by @akela_lacy, @ryangrim

Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley helped deliver the presidency to Barack Obama in 2008, despite an all-out push there by GOP nominee John McCain.

Obama won the state with a 10-point margin — eight years later, Pennsylvania would flip red for the first time in close to three decades.

An analysis of election returns over the last 100 years from Lehigh Valley Live, a local Easton paper, in September revealed that neighboring Northampton county has backed the winning presidential candidate all but three times since 1920.

Polls have begun to show clearly that if everybody who plans to vote is able to, Biden has the upper hand. But particularly in Pennsylvania, that’s far from guaranteed. That could turn the state into a street brawl, and it’s one that progressives worry the state isn’t built for.

One of the biggest assaults has been Trump’s ability to convince Democrats that mail-in voting isn’t safe. More than 2.6 million absentee ballots have been requested in the state, with 1.7 million of those requests coming from Democrats.

If those voters, spooked by Trump, show up in person instead, but don’t bring their absentee ballot and the envelope it came in, they’ll be blocked from voting. They should be able to request a provisional ballot, but the chaos and long lines the GOP wants will have been sparked.

Democrats, said Jonathan Smucker, a co-founder of the group @PAStandsUp, are playing an asymmetrical game, taking a wait-and-see approach to the coming election chaos, while Republicans are mounting an all-out war to win Pennsylvania by any means necessary.

Organizers in Pennsylvania say they’re operating with little help from the local Democrats or the Biden campaign. But a new constellation of grassroots progressive organizations is hoping to fill the gap left by the party.

Read the full story: interc.pt/3dOJmyU