Former President Donald Trump is surpassing his 2020 vote share in rural and Rust Belt areas across Pennsylvania.

Trump improved his vote share in 42 of 43 counties in 2020, with 95% or more of votes counted by 1 a.m. (Far fewer results were tabulated in Pennsylvania's other 24 counties).

In all but one of these counties (Cumberland), Trump has a higher share of the vote than he did four years ago. He also already has a slightly higher vote total – about 18,000 more than in 2020, with more votes still to be counted.

Vote counting was slower in Philadelphia and its suburban counties, which are crucial to Harris' strategy for Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia, only 68% of votes were counted. In the suburbs, 52% were counted in Bucks County, 48% in Chester County, 68% in Delaware County and 59% in Montgomery County.

No winner has been declared in the state, and thousands of ballots remained to be counted in many of the blue counties that Democrats are relying on to offset expected losses elsewhere. But the more votes Trump received from areas outside Philadelphia, its suburbs and Pittsburgh, the greater the number Harris was able to make up in more Democratic parts of the state.

But some of the swings toward Trump have been dramatic. With 98% of votes counted, Trump received 77.5% of the vote in Schuylkill County, compared to 69.2% of the final vote in 2020, an increase of 8.3 percentage points.

Trump's vote share increased by 6.2 percentage points in Columbia County and 5.9 percentage points in Mifflin County. Trump also increased his lead over his Democratic opponent in those 43 counties by more than 70,000 votes. Trump's lead over Harris in those counties totaled 638,000 votes as of 1 a.m. Wednesday. In 2020, his last lead over Joe Biden in those counties was 567,000 votes.

The improvement for Trump shows that he has managed to expand his base in the parts of the state where he was most focused.

Last year, Trump made 31 visits to Pennsylvania, and only seven of those visits were to Philadelphia and its suburbs. Two went to Allegheny. The other 22 spanned the state, most of them large rallies aimed at strengthening a base he has been building since 2016.

Most of Trump's gains appear to be in red counties with smaller populations, but if his improvements affect the entire state, they could add up.

A prominent region is northeastern Pennsylvania. In Lackawanna, home to President Joe Biden's hometown of Scranton, where Trump did better than Biden there in 2020. Trump already had more votes in Lackawanna than he did there in 2020, and the votes have yet to be counted. Democrats appeared to be losing voters in Lackawanna.

And in Luzerne County, with 95% of the expected votes counted, Trump has 60.4% of the vote, compared to his final vote share of 56.7% in 2020. His tally is 87,512 votes, with more votes still to be counted , representing about 600 more votes than his final 2020 total.

Trump appeared to have flipped Northampton County, a longtime frontrunner that supported him in 2016 but went to Biden in 2020.

The 61 counties outside Philadelphia, its suburbs and Allegheny have long been the state's major Republican draws, but Trump has significantly outspent the vote there.

2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won a comfortable 396,000-vote lead in these counties. Trump more than doubled that lead, receiving 816,000 votes in 2016, making him the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since 1988.

He managed to extend this lead by another 14,000 votes in 2020. Any path forward for Trump in Pennsylvania had to involve him getting big vote numbers again in rural areas. And as of 11 p.m. on election day, he was on that path.