Polls may show Gov. Josh Shapiro on track to win an easy re-election victory on Nov. 3, but he is taking little for granted — including the chances that President Donald Trump stays on the sidelines when votes are tallied.
"I'm deeply concerned because I've lived through Donald Trump now doing this for years and years and years," Shapiro told WESA Saturday during a multicounty swing through Western Pennsylvania. "I fully expect we'll be back in court protecting the vote and protecting the people. ... We're also prepared should they try and deploy any federal troops into our communities."
The Trump administration in recent days has already initiated a legal effort that seems meant to preemptively challenge the outcome of a U.S. Senate race in Alaska if the Republican candidate loses. The administration also sued the state of California to demand the removal of some 20,000 voters the administration says are not citizens. That's on top of Trump's earlier efforts to challenge the results in his own races. and more recently to involve the post office in determining who receives a mail-in ballot.
But Pennsylvania government is "incredibly prepared" for whatever the White House might seek to do, Shapiro said.
"I want the good people of Pennsylvania to know that their right to vote will be protected and that we will accept the results and accept the will of the people … We have been preparing for this for more than a year, and we will protect people's access to the polling places."
Shapiro was in Pittsburgh Saturday evening for a rally with supporters at the IBEW Local 5 hall on the South Side — but not before he stopped for pizza at Fiori's in Brookline. (Shapiro eats pizza plain with no toppings — an approach he said allows him to "get a good sense [of a pizza's merits] because you're comparing apples to apples" — and calls Fiori's is his "go-to spot.") While there, he spoke with owner Fiore Moscatiello, who he'd last seen shortly after a storm in April 2025 ripped the roof off the shop, and a number of patrons.
"Tell your parents to vote!" he told one young customer, while urging a college student from Ohio to support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. When a customer admired the blue jacket he was wearing — emblazoned with an outline of the state and the legend "PA 1787" — Shapiro said, "You run for governor, I'll give you one."
Shapiro is hoping not just to win his race, but to bring along a number of Democrats across the finish line with him, particularly in the state Senate. If Democrats can reverse the GOP's 28-to-22 seat advantage there and maintain control of the state House, Shapiro says it would break a logjam on a number of priorities.
Chief among them, he told WESA, was a minimum-wage increase to $15 an hour ("That will be Act 1 of 2027" he predicted). Other priorities: an effort "to codify abortion rights in our Constitution," a move that would require votes in successive legislative sessions and the support of voters, and an effort to expand the statute of limitations to help sexual abuse victims sue their abusers.
"Those are things that the Senate Republicans have blocked for years," he said.
But first he has to win re-election on Nov. 3, and while polling consistently shows him with a lead solidly into double digits, Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity is still making her case to beat him. And in recent days the skill games industry, which became outlawed this month when state officials failed to meet a court-ordered deadline to legalize them, has sought to boost her efforts.
Garrity's most recent campaign-finance report, filed late last week, showed that between mid-September and mid-October, she raised slightly less than $5.4 million, $4 million of which came from two contributors with ties to the industry. Both the Pennsylvania Amusement and Music Machine Association and Pittsburgh businessman John D. Conley, whose company Pinnacle Vending serves venues that carry the machines, contributed $2 million each to her campaign.
Garrity's camp is also blaming Shapiro for the removal of the machines, arguing in billboards that "Shapiro took your skill games. Stacy Garrity will bring them back."
Garrity has endorsed a per-machine fee tax structure for the machines, which the industry itself prefers to the 52 percent tax backed by Shapiro, and equal to the tax on slot machines operated by casinos. Her campaign says that the impasse shows that Shapiro "failed yet again and now thousands of Pennsylvania jobs have been put in jeopardy," while also threatening the bottom line of "VFWs, American Legions, and scores of Pennsylvania small businesses" that operate the machines.
Her campaign accused Shapiro of being "in the pocket of the casino and betting industry." (The campaign cited Michael Rubin, who co-owns a sports-betting operation; WESA did not find a direct campaign contribution to Shapiro this year, but Shapiro has reportedly accepted "in-kind" donations in the form of helicopter rides from Rubin.)
Shapiro scoffed at the attacks, while also suggesting the machines may not be back any time soon. He said he'd been "trying to regulate these games, get them out of the black market, limit their numbers, and then tax them."
But he noted that Senate Republicans, who have been divided on the issue, have failed to advance such a program. And he said that if Democrats replaced Republicans in leadership, they would have more urgent concerns, such as raising the minimum wage.
"I think the train has left the station on this," he said of the industry. With state police rounding up outlaw machines, he said, "This is largely now in the rearview mirror."
"I got a lot of priorities" on his legislative agenda, he said. "This would certainly not be at the top of my list."
At the IBEW hall later that evening, Shapiro's speech to supporters reprised themes — such as his invocation of a Jewish belief that "no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it" — that have helped bring him to national attention as a potential 2028 Presidential nominee. He and other speakers linked the campaign, and that of other Democrats, to Trump and his record.
"We have an opportunity in this midterm election to do as Donald Trump says and vote like he's on the ballot," said Shapiro's running mate, Lt. Gov. Austin Davis. "To send a message that we want leaders who are going to lead with conviction, who are going to stand up for our fundamental rights, and who are going to make our lives better."
The rally, scheduled at 7:30 on a Saturday night, drew a comparatively modest crowd of invitees. While there is much at stake in Pennsylvania this fall — including, potentially, control of the U.S. House and the state Senate — the key swing races are concentrated in the eastern part of the state. ("Those opportunities are not necessarily here in Western PA," state Sen. Jay Costa, who would lead a Democratic majority in the upper chamber, acknowledged to attendees. But he said volunteering for candidates elsewhere "means all the difference in the world.")
Shapiro urged he audience to keep the bigger picture in mind, and remember that they "have the power to vote and create a check on the President of the United States." Big wins in the state, he said "will be enough to literally tilt the balance of power."
The election is Nov. 3.
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