Here's where hope lives for Kamala Harris: In the suburbs

Donald Trump's supporters are confident, even cocky, that he's winning. Election forecasts show him as a slight favourite in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.

Yet if Kamala Harris pulls off a victory, it will happen, in no small part, because of places like Montgomery County, a prosperous, fast-growing suburb outside Philadelphia.

The county, in southeast Pennsylvania, was once a Republican power base that gave the elder George Bush a 22-point victory margin. But that's before it doubled in size, flipped blue, kept getting bluer and in the last election favoured the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, by 26 points.

It's not just one of the wealthiest places in the state; it's a liberal bastion that led the nation's push to same-sex marriage. And the Democrats here insist it's going to keep trending their way this year, piling up crucial votes for Harris.

A powerful local politician said politics are realigning in unpredictable ways: Even if Trump gains votes from Black and brown men, which he insists still isn't guaranteed, college-educated white voters are drifting the other way.

And the abortion debate is merely accelerating that trend, the politician, Matt Bradford, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, said over a coffee in his district.

"We are going to put up numbers among well-educated white folks — and white men — that we've never put up before," Bradford said in a shop just off the highway outside Philadelphia.

"The political tectonic plates are moving in multiple directions at the same time.... I'm very confident. I'm damn confident in the affluent, well-educated suburbs where, yes, we [have] made tremendous strides."

Bradford described a block party in front of his house a couple of weekends ago. He said three of his neighbours — lifelong Republicans, professionals in the pharmaceutical industry and a business owner — told him they're with Harris this time.

"[They're telling me], 'This man is a threat to our way of life. To our country.' They're not traditional Democratic voters," Bradford said. "They are people who recognize the singular challenge Donald Trump poses."

The neighbourhood has changed.

Jamila Winder recalls being part of the first Black family in her neighbourhood, when her parents moved here in 1983 for her dad's job as a warden in a prison, in what was then a much less populated area.

She said she learned years later something her mother had kept from her as a child: The organizers of a school play wanted her and her brother to play the slaves.

Her mom agreed to have the kids in the play, on one condition: "My kids won't be slaves." Forty years later, Winder is co-chair of the county. And she's organizing on behalf of Kamala Harris, a Black woman expected to win overwhelming support here.