Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Facebook.

Today is Tuesday, October 27th.

Consumer confidence is down, COVID cases are up, and we're focused on the fight over fracking.

Both President Trump and Vice President Biden yesterday visited Pennsylvania, which both campaigns

believe could be the tipping point state in next week's election.

Biden, of course, has the home field advantage, having spent much of his childhood in Scranton,

but Trump won Pennsylvania four years ago and thinks he could do it again

due to his unwavering support of fracking. A few things to know. First, estimates are that

Pennsylvania has around 26,000 jobs directly tied to natural gas and possibly up to twice

that number indirectly involved. That's substantial, although at most,

represents half a percent of registered voters in the state, and it's well below Trump's recent

claim that there are 940,000 fracking jobs in the state. And in fact, that 940,000, that's more

fracking jobs than there are in all of America.

Second, Joe Biden did say at one point during a primary debate that he'd seek to ban fracking, but his official campaign position has always been that the fracking ban would be

limited to federal lands.

Third, and this is really the most important point, America's fracking industry is in deep trouble,

regardless of who wins the election. The sounds of hydraulic drills have been replaced with the

sounds of layoffs. Bankruptcies and fire sale mergers have become commonplace.

Now, some of this was already underway before the pandemic, but COVID supercharged the demand

destruction, as almost anyone actually involved in Pennsylvania's fracking industry would

know.

In 15 seconds, we'll dig deeper into the state of fracking and what it means for the future

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