HARRISBURG — President Donald Trump endorsed Republican Stacy Garrity in her bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Josh Shapiro as governor of Pennsylvania.
Trump posted to Truth Social on Tuesday night, the social media company owned by Trump Media & Technology Group, and lent his support to Garrity. He said she “has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of Pennsylvania — SHE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”
“Highly Respected and very popular State Treasurer, Stacy Garrity, is running to be the next Governor of the GREAT Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a very special place to me in that we had a LANDSLIDE Presidential Election Win, just over one year ago, on November 5, 2024!” Trump wrote.
“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. As your next Governor, Stacy will work tirelessly to Grow the Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Champion American Energy DOMINANCE, Strengthen our Military/Veterans, Keep our Border SECURE, Ensure LAW AND ORDER, Safeguard our Elections, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” he wrote.
Garrity secured the early endorsement of the Pennsylvania Republican Party in September. With the party’s previous gubernatorial nominee, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, announcing that he won’t run this year, Garrity could enter the spring primary election without a challenger for the Republican nomination.
She’ll presumably face an electoral challenge as tough as any in the fall as Shapiro remains popular and well-funded in seeking a second term as governor, potentially with an eye on the 2028 presidential election.
“I am honored to receive the endorsement of President Donald Trump,” Garrity said in a campaign statement. “In 2016, President Trump did what no Republican presidential nominee in 28 years was able to accomplish — win the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And in 2024, he repeated this feat by an even larger margin. Why? Because President Trump has been a voice for hardworking Americans who have been too often left behind, by standing up to our international adversaries like China, lowering the tax burden on families and small businesses, and returning pride to our nation.”
Pennsylvania voters cast 3,543,308 ballots in support of Trump in 2024. Garrity’s total nearly matched Trump, falling short by 972 votes. Her total of 3,542,336 set a record in the commonwealth for most votes cast for a candidate seeking statewide office.
Shapiro holds the record for the governor’s race, having received 3,031,137 votes in 2022 in defeating Mastriano by a margin exceeding 792,000.
While Garrity benefited from twice being on the ballot with Trump in a presidential election year, Shapiro was elected as governor in a midterm election, the same scenario playing out in the 2026 cycle.
“Josh Shapiro has done everything he can to stand in President Trump’s way, suing his administration more than two dozen times. Josh Shapiro is President Trump’s number one adversary, and I am looking forward to working with President Trump and his team to defeat Josh Shapiro this November,” she said.
Shapiro’s campaign deferred comment to remarks shared by Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale.
DePasquale described Garrity as an “extreme, toxic candidate” focused on extending Trump’s agenda into Harrisburg, using Trump’s own endorsement as confirmation. He pointed to her support for federal tax cuts that coincided with cuts to subsidized health care, opposition to abortion access, and supporting Trump when he disputed the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Pennsylvanians deserve better than a Governor who is nothing more than a rubber stamp for Trump’s chaos and higher costs, and that’s why she will be soundly rejected this November,” DePasquale said in a prepared statement.
The Garrity campaign announced the endorsement less than four hours after Shapiro made an announcement himself — that he filed a legal brief supporting the City of Philadelphia’s lawsuit against the Trump Administration contesting the removal of a historical exhibit about the lives of slaves who lived at the President’s House Site, once inhabited by George Washington, at Independence National Historical Park.
Shapiro has been front and center in challenging the president, largely regarding disputes over federally appropriated funding and cuts to social services, successfully securing the release of millions in education funds, nutrition benefits and public health grants, for example. Occasionally, they’ve also been in agreement, or at least on briefly collegial terms, such as on lowering domestic energy costs and in the wake of political violence committed against one another.
Ongoing immigration enforcement operations are front of mind for Shapiro, too. As he promoted a new memoir on national TV this week, he’s been critical of the operations in Minnesota, called for them to end and repeated past statements that Pennsylvania is prepared should federal agents conduct immigration raids in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or elsewhere in the commonwealth.
“A fundamental responsibility for government is to keep people safe. And part of the way you keep people safe is by building trust between law enforcement and the community. What Donald Trump and the federal government are doing is eroding that trust, is making people less safe, and it is time to terminate this mission led by CBP and ICE, this mission directed by Trump and Vance and Noem, to wreak havoc on the community. And, we need a full investigation led, I believe, by the state government,” Shapiro told “Good Morning America” earlier this week.