Republican gubernatorial hopeful Stacy Garrity said Friday afternoon that she would cooperate with President Donald Trump’s administration in running Pennsylvania’s elections.
“I would work with the Trump administration, obviously, because we need to turn our state around,” Garrity, who also serves as state treasurer, said while meeting with reporters during the state Republican Party’s winter meeting at the Harrisburg Hilton.
On a podcast this week, Trump called for Republicans to “take over the voting” in “at least 15 places” and “nationalize” future elections — in direct opposition to Article 1, Section IV of the U.S. Constitution, which grants states the authority to run their own elections.
The White House has downplayed Trump’s comments, claiming he only meant he supported pending GOP legislation requiring people to prove their citizenship to register to vote.
Trump has falsely claimed for years that the 2020 election results, in which he lost to former President Joe Biden, were not legitimate. The FBI raided a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility in January, seizing hundreds of boxes of election-related materials from that year.
Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro, said Garrity’s comments were “dangerous” and that she is “standing with Donald Trump as he attacks our democracy.”
After her initial remark, Garrity noted national polling shows a majority of Americans support legislation requiring voters to prove their identity every time they cast a ballot.
And Republican National Chairman Joe Gruters, who was the keynote speaker of the state GOP’s meeting, argued that Trump’s comments have been taken out of context.
“The problem is that the system is too loose and all we want is to make it as easy as possible vote — as hard as possible to cheat,” Gruters said.
Instances of recorded voter fraud where an individual is charged with a crime are rare nationwide, let alone in Pennsylvania.
Garrity joined many Republicans after the 2020 election in sowing unfounded doubts over the legitimacy of the results.
While attending a rally outside the state Capitol the day before the Jan. 6 riots, she said the election results were “tarnished forever.” And she falsely told the crowd at a 2022 Trump rally in Greensburg, “We know that he won.”
Garrity has since backtracked or downplayed those remarks.
“Just to be clear, that was at a Trump rally and those are kind of fun things,” Garrity said of her 2022 comments at the Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon in January. “So it’s easy to get caught up at a Trump rally.”
Garrity noted she was “painfully aware” that Joe Biden was president. She did not acknowledge whether Trump lost the 2020 election.
Garrity is looking to derail incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro’s campaign for a second term.
At an unrelated news conference in Philadelphia on Friday, Shapiro also addressed Trump’s comments.
“Back in 2020, when the president lost here in Pennsylvania, he and his allies sued me — I was the attorney general at the time — 43 different times to try and overturn the votes of Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro said. “He went 0 and 43. I went 43 and 0. And we had a free and fair, safe and secure election.”
Shapiro’s campaign posted the clip to social media with a caption: “Donald Trump does not run our elections in Pennsylvania — and he never will.”