With only a few days left until the midterm elections, Stacy Garrity, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, made a campaign stop Friday in Altoona.
Garrity, her running mate for Lt. Gov. Jason Richey and other area lawmakers spoke to a small crowd of supporters inside Kepner’s Grandview Meats about a variety of issues, including transgender athletes, energy manufacturing and small businesses struggling with overregulation.
Mel Kepner said he’s operated the butcher’s shop since it opened 16 years ago. He said they’ve had to increase prices in the past four years and blames new regulations and other rising costs across the industry.
“But I didn't increase (prices) at the same rate,” Kepner said. “We've actually taken less of a margin. So we make less money. We're working harder, making less money. And it inhibits the ability for us to really grow. And it also inhibits the ability for us to hire other people.”
Several polls in Pennsylvania and across the nation show that affordability is at the top of voters’ minds, regardless of party affiliation. But, in an AP-NORC poll conducted Sept. 24-28, voters said they trust the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party to handle the cost of living.
Garrity said she isn’t concerned about recent polls that show Shapiro leading the race by a wide margin. She said she believes those polls oversample Democrats.
“I'm not concerned at all because I travel all around the Commonwealth and there's excitement on the ground,” Garrity said. “And if these polls are right, then everybody's in trouble.”
Garrity said, if elected, she plans to call for a special session to regulate skill games. Garrity is in favor of taxing each machine at $500 per month, while Shapiro wants to tax the machines at 52%, the same rate as casinos.
Garrity said she also plans to immediately address transgender athletes in schools.
“Day one executive order: No more biological males competing against our girls in sports or in their locker rooms,” Garrity said as the room cheered.
Democratic incumbent Josh Shapiro previously called supporters of bans on transgender athletes “extremist legislators.”
Garrity and Richey also said they would “unleash” Pennsylvania’s natural gas.
“This is going to create 200,000 new jobs, $6-to-7 billion in new revenue here in Pennsylvania that we're going to use to reduce property taxes, reduce the second highest gas tax in the United States, death tax, income tax,” Richey said. “We want to make your life more affordable.”
Shapiro has said he wants to also use clean forms of energy like solar and wind.
Election Day is on Tuesday and the polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
