Talking to a room of Republican insiders in Lancaster County earlier this month, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity revealed how she secured a coveted endorsement from President Donald Trump in this year’s governor’s race.
In her telling, Garrity landed Trump’s support by answering a single question.
“I was on the phone with some committee people and Scott Perry starts blowing up my phone: ‘Hey, POTUS has a question. Call me,’ ” Garrity said, referencing the 10th District congressman and former chair of the House Freedom Caucus.
This story is based on an audio recording obtained by WITF of a private dinner held on Feb. 12.
“Thank goodness I called him right back,” Garrity told the audience. Without revealing what the question was, she continued, Perry was evidently pleased by her response. “That’s all I needed to know,” Perry said, according to Garrity.
Garrity’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for more information about the question Trump had told Perry to ask Garrity on his behalf.
Neither did Perry’s campaign, nor the White House.
The recording of her speech was shared with WITF by an attendee of the Warwick GOP Committee dinner, who was granted anonymity because the person did not have permission to record the event. WITF then confirmed Garrity’s comments with two other people who were in the audience that evening.
She said she didn’t know when Trump would make his endorsement. “(I)s it going to be a week from now, a month from now, six months from now?”
But about 20 minutes later — just before 9 p.m. on Jan. 27 — Garrity said Trump posted to Truth Social a ringing endorsement of her campaign.
“A successful Businesswoman, retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel, and now, as State Treasurer, Stacy is a true America First Patriot, who has been with me from the beginning,” Trump’s post read.
He added, “Stacy Garrity has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of Pennsylvania – SHE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”
Winning Trump’s endorsement was a vital step in Garrity’s bid to oust incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro, a first-term Democrat whose rising national platform has thrust him into conversations about whether he’ll run for president in 2028.
Before she recounted the story at the GOP dinner, Garrity noted to the audience she was only the tenth gubernatorial campaign to win Trump’s endorsement — a fact that elicited applause from the audience.
TIES TO TRUMP
Garrity, a native of Bradford County, is a longtime ally of Trump.
At a 2022 rally, she echoed his unfounded claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. Garrity rescinded that statement earlier this year while speaking with reporters.
Democrats have pointed to that moment, along with her support for some of Trump’s policies, to criticize Garrity for what they’ve characterized as her putting loyalty to Trump above fighting for Pennsylvanians.
Trump has promised to use various levers of his power as president to influence this year‘s midterm elections. He also continues to falsely claim that mass fraud in favor of Democrats cost him the 2020 election against former President Joe Biden.
The FBI seized hundreds of boxes of 2020 ballots from a Georgia elections facility in January. And at his State of the Union earlier this week, Trump again claimed without evidence, “The cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant.”
The Washington Post reported this week that Trump said he would unilaterally require people to prove their citizenship before registering to vote and to show an ID before casting a ballot, if Congress failed to pass such legislation — known as the SAVE Act — before this year’s midterm election.
Earlier this month, Garrity said as governor she would work with Trump on organizing Pennsylvania’s elections, after he said on a podcast that Republicans should “nationalize” them.
STATE OF THE RACE
It’s unclear how far Trump’s endorsement will go for Garrity. A Quinnipiac University poll released this week found Trump had a 54% disapproval rating among Pennsylvania voters, compared to a 40% approval rating.
That same poll found Garrity lagged Shapiro in a head-to-head matchup by about 18 percentage points — 55% to 37% in Shapiro’s favor.
But Trump’s backing could at least attract Republican donors to help narrow the fundraising gap between Garrity and Shapiro. Garrity raised about $1.5 million last year, compared to the $30 million Shapiro has banked over the past few years.
Garrity received an early endorsement from the Pennsylvania GOP, helping clear the field for her to run unopposed in the party’s primary on May 19. Last month, she tapped western Pennsylvania attorney Jason Richey to run as her running mate for lieutenant governor.