One minute after polls officially closed in Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro was declared the winner in his reelection bid against Republican challenger state Treasurer Stacy Garrity for another four-year term.
The Associated Press called the race for Shapiro at 8:01 p.m. Tuesday. One minute later, a crowd of more than 100 Shapiro's supporters gathered at his election-return watch party in Harrisburg — including members of the Shapiro administration and state Democratic Party chair Eugene DePasquale — cheered when the race results were pumped out over a sound system. The governor did not immediately make an appearance.
“The Dems put together a really strong operation from the outset with Governor Shapiro's investment [in down ballot races],” said Democratic strategist J.J. Abbott before polls closed. “They just really put in over time a really strong effort, and so they're riding that momentum now.
“I think people are feeling good because they put in a lot of work."
Shapiro's supporters awaited, then celebrated the race results at the Penn Harris Hotel, just a few miles from the state Capitol. TVs set up throughout the banquet hall showed the results of races in states across the country. Guests and press began to enter around 7 p.m.
Polls showed Shapiro ahead by two digits throughout the campaign cycle, and the Democrat out-fundraised Garrity by a 10-to-1 margin. The mood Tuesday evening was light and expectant, and in the final week of the campaign, Shapiro had been campaigning not just on his own behalf but in support of Democrats up and down the ballot.
“Here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to flip four Congressional seats, enough to be a check on Donald Trump's chaos and cruelty and corruption… and to have a Democratic trifecta in Harrisburg,” Shapiro said at a Monday rally near his hometown in Montgomery County.
“It's a lot of power you have.”
Shapiro's efforts on behalf of the candidate downballot reflect Democratic hope of earning a "trifecta" in which they control both houses of the legislature. That could allow the party to advnace a long-frutrated agenda with goals that range from a minimum-wage hike to the protection of abortion rights.
And while Shapiro has steadfastly refused to discuss speculation that he might run for President in 2028, a demonsration of his political coatails wouldn't hurt his standing within the party either.
Garrity is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and Iraq War veteran who had pledged to “Turn Around PA” if voters selected her. The Bradford County native largely ran on increasing the state’s oil and gas production and supporting alternatives to public schools — as well as reminding voters about the Shapiro administration’s handling of alleged sexual misconduct of a top aide and subsequent taxpayer-funded $295,000 settlement.
And at the outset Republicans were enthusiastic about her bid, thanks to a resume that included not just successful military service but a record as a business executive. The party, hoping she could break another glass ceiling by becoming the state’s first governor, rushed to endorse her even before candidates could put their names on the ballot.
As polls opened on Election Day, Shapiro has been undefeated throughout his political career. He’s previously won races for state House, county commissioner and state attorney general before his first gubernatorial win in 2022, where he trounced Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, by 15 percentage points.
Shapiro had a powerful advantage throughout the 2026 campaign as well, far outraising Garrity in campaign contributions. He began the year with $30 million in the bank, added $40.5 million to it as of late October, and spent $66 million by that time. Shapiro’s campaign outspent Garrity’s team by a nearly ten-to-one margin: she had raised $9.2 million by that point, of which it spent $6.8 million.
Lehigh University political science professor and polling expert Chris Borick said Shapiro’s campaign was able to use that money to keep pace with an issue where the politics changed quickly: data centers and artificial intelligence.
“Incumbents carry the weight for data centers because it's been on their watch,” Borick said. “Shapiro was absolutely vulnerable on this issue,” having secured billions of dollars in investments from companies such as Amazon to build cloud-computing campuses in the state.
But Garrity had vulnerabilities on the issue as well: She’d hailed that business deal herself, and made comments suggesting Pennsylvania build more data campuses, in rural areas. Advertisements spotlighting those comments soon blanketed the airwaves, even on classic-rock and other stations that don’t usually attract political ads.
“He was able to take a weakness and turn it on Garrity, because he had all the money in the world, and could define her with it,” Borick said.
By contrast, one survey showed that as late as September, one in four Republicans didn’t recognize Garrity’s name. That’s despite the fact that in her 2024 run for a second term as treasurer, Garrity set a record for most votes received by a statewide candidate.
“A lot was made of the fact that Garrity won the most statewide votes ever with her treasurer run in 2024, but that certainly didn’t translate in this election,” said Daniele Gross, a Harrisburg-based Democratic analyst and partner at Clear Point Communications.
In the final days of the campaign, Garrity reported an influx of cash from the skill games industry, including two donations of $2 million each from industry sources. And her campaign pledged to bring the games back after state officials missed a court-ordered deadline for crafting regulations for it.
The campaign used some of its resources to pay for artificial intelligence-generated attack ads depicting the governor in his office and inside of a data center.
Garrity stood by the campaign’s use of AI during an unrelated event in Harrisburg last month. She said she wasn’t concerned about misleading potential voters, “because everything in those ads is absolutely true, unlike the ads that he runs against me.”
In their only debate, the candidates traded barbs on data center development, election security and entitlement programs. Looming over much of the race was President Donald Trump, who endorsed Garrity’s bid this year and, previously, alongside Pennsylvania’s Republican row officers, including the state attorney general, and Congressional delegation.
Shapiro positioned himself as a check on “the chaos in Washington” due to Trump administration policies. The governor sued Trump officials dozens of times — to avoid turning over residents’ personal data, to free up withheld federal funding, among other issues — during the Democrat’s first gubernatorial term.
Garrity was expected to join supporters Tuesday night at a golf course in Tunkhannock, in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania some 60 miles from her hometown in Bradford County.