Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), seen here at a news conference in Philadelphia in June 2023.

You shouldn’t have to wait until next weekend to find out the winner of Pennsylvania’s 2024 election, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman said Sunday, as he predicted Kamala Harris to narrowly prevail in the state over Donald Trump.

Fetterman, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said state officials have learned the lesson of 2020, when millions of voters cast absentee ballots due to the pandemic and overwhelmed local boards of elections.

Even though they still can’t start counting the mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. on Tuesday, officials are more prepared to tally them more quickly than four years ago, when Joe Biden wasn’t declared the winner of Pennsylvania until Saturday, Fetterman said.

“It’s certainly not going to be like it was in 2020,” said Fetterman, D-Pa.

Still, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said he didn’t expect the race to be called Tuesday night.

“The closer the race, the longer it takes the media to call the race, as it has always, ever been — with mail ballots, before mail ballots,” Schmidt said last week.

Schmidt, who in 2020 was the only Republican on the three-person Philadelphia City Commission that oversaw the city’s elections, resisted Trump’s demands that he support the false claims of voter fraud, receiving death threats for refusing to go along.

“We have the right guy for the right time,” Fetterman said. “I do believe he’s going to deliver an honest, true reflection of the Pennsylvania voters, their will.”

The Trump campaign already is making claims of voter fraud and the former president has refused to say that he will accept the outcome of the election. More than one-quarter of likely voters in a Muhlenberg College/Morning Call survey released Sunday, 28%, said that voter fraud was the biggest threat to a safe, secure and accurate election in 2024.

“It’s the same thing that he tried in 2020 and we had absolutely a secure election,” Fetterman said. “Desperation is the worst cologne. I expected he was going to do that. It’s not going to be effective.”

In the August 2023 indictment on charges that the former president tried to overturn the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith included Trump’s false claim that there were “205,000 more votes than voters” in Pennsylvania, and his efforts to form a fake slate of electors.

The only fraud was on the Republican side, Fetterman said.

“They had their dead moms voting for Trump,” he said. “And I’d like to remind everybody that they were all caught and they were prosecuted.”

And Fetterman blasted the Trump campaign for its attacks on transgender kids and on Harris for supporting them.

“If your political capital comes from picking on trans kids or gay kids or anything like that, you’re just bankrupt throughout all of this,” Fetterman said. “My version of being a man is it’s like, hey, I like rib eyes, I like Motorhead, and I’m never going to pick on trans kids and gay kids. …It doesn’t make you tough. It doesn’t make you a man to pick on trans or gay kids. It just makes you an (expletive).”

As the final polls continue to show the race a dead heat in Pennsylvania, Fetterman said he expected Harris to eke out a narrow win.

“Trump definitely has a connection with voters here in Pennsylvania and that’s why it’s going to be close. But there is a tremendous amount of energy for Harris as well,” Fetterman said. “She’s put in the time here in Pennsylvania. And she showed up all across there. … I mean, she understands that you got to show up, and that’s what she’s done. And that’s why we’re in a position to carry Pennsylvania.”

In a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters released Sunday, the two candidates were deadlocked at 48%. Harris led Trump, 60% to 35%, in the Allegheny County region; 73% to 23% in Philadelphia; and 56% to 40% in the Philadelphia suburbs. Trump did best in the central part of the state (76% to 21%) and the western part (58% to 38%).

The Muhlenberg poll showed the two candidates statistically tied, with Harris’s 49% to 47% lead within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus six percentage points.

That survey showed voters with a positive opinion of Harris, 49% to 46%, with Trump receiving a rating of 54% negative and 42% positive.

Four polls of likely voters released last week — Quinnipiac University, CNN, Monmouth University and Susquehanna Polling and Research — all showed the candidates either tied or separated by no more than two points, also well within the surveys’ margins of error.

Democratic strategist and ad-maker J.J. Balaban said he’s not sure about the outcome.

“There are just things we don’t know until they happen,” he said in an interview. “The presidential race is one of those things. There are plausible reasons for both candidates to carry the state. We have to be comfortable waiting and being patient.”

A tied race is better than where Democrats were in June before President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection, Democratic consultant Modia Butler said.

“It was universally recognized that Donald Trump, come Nov. 5, was going to secure a second term,” Butler said. “Just a few weeks later, in July, Biden steps down, anoints Kamala Harris as his successor and injects new enthusiasm and energy into this race. Now we have a legitimate shot at pulling off a comeback for the ages. From that perspective, I feel good about where we are compared to where we were.”

Republicans were more optimistic about victory.

“I believe Donald Trump and his ticket will have a very good day in Pennsylvania,” Republican strategist Charlie Gerow said in an interview. “The polls never reflect President Trump’s strength. I think he will win convincingly.”

Both candidates are scheduled to campaign in Pittsburgh on Monday, the day before Election Day, with Trump speaking at the PPG Paints Arena and Harris also stopping in Allentown and Philadelphia.

“We all understand Pennsylvania is going to pick the president,” Fetterman said.

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