Democratic gubernatorial candidate Shapiro visits Washington, vows to protect voting rights
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
Pennsylvania Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro talks with supporters at the headquarters of Washington County’s Democratic Committee as Larry Maggi, a county commissioner, looks on.
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
Pennsylvania Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro greets Joseph “JoJo” Burgess at Washington County’s Democratic headquarters Sunday. Burgess, a steelworker, was a guest of President Joe Biden’s at the State of the Union address last month.
The last time Pennsylvania voters elected two Democrats in a row to the governor’s office was 1958, when David L. Lawrence followed George M. Leader. And that was when governors were limited to only one term.
But even if history and the current political environment may not be entirely in his favor, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro insisted on a visit to Washington late Sunday afternoon that he has the message – and the vote-getting prowess – to win the governor’s race in November and succeed outgoing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.
“In 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost in Pennsylvania, I won,” Shapiro said outside the headquarters of the Washington County Democratic Committee on East Wheeling Street. “And in 2020, I ran ahead of every other Democrat or Republican, and ended up with more votes than anybody in the history of Pennsylvania. I’m going to compete in every corner of the commonwealth, I’m going to compete for every single vote, and I take my cues from Washington County, not Washington, D.C.”
Although in theory he is facing an uphill battle, Shapiro does have some powerful advantages. As Pennsylvania’s attorney general he has been able to generate an abundance of headlines, particularly in 2018, when his office issued a report outlining decades of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. Also, Shapiro has no opposition in the Democratic primary, while the Republican field is fractious and unsettled with just a little more than a month to go before the May 17 primary. This has allowed Shapiro to save his money, while his eventual GOP opponent may well have depleted most of their war chest just to win the nomination.
All the Republican gubernatorial candidates have been lambasting Shapiro on the campaign trail, and he aimed some fire back at them, contending “they are all cut from the exact same cloth.”
“They are all extreme,” Shapiro said. “I think they are all dangerous, and well outside the mainstream of where the good people of Washington County are.”
Shapiro told local Democratic activists, including Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi and a host of former elected officials and candidates, “I’m running for governor not to win a race, but to try to meet this moment.” If elected, he said he would invest in vocational and technical training in high schools, stop the reliance on standardized testing and make mental-health counselors available in high schools. Shapiro also said he would invest in broadband, fight for the rights of unions to organize and protect the right to vote.
“We must not lose that veto pen, because they are coming for your right to vote,” he said.
It is widely anticipated that abortion rights will be an issue in gubernatorial campaigns across the country this fall, as the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to modify or eliminate the right to an abortion in a ruling this summer. Shapiro said a woman’s right to choose an abortion is “a critically important issue, and it’s an issue where there’s a clear difference between me and my opponents.”
He added, “Someone is making a choice. I just believe it shouldn’t be the politicians in Harrisburg. It should be the women in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”