PA Gov. Shapiro launches campaign to elect Democrats

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Gov. Josh Shapiro on Saturday unveiled a multimillion-dollar statewide campaign effort designed to help elect Democrats across Pennsylvania, launching what party officials called the largest coordinated midterm operation in the state’s history.

Shapiro joined Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale and other party leaders in Dauphin County, in the heart of a district Democrats hope to pick up in November. There they announced the “Rise Up Pennsylvania” initiative, a coordinated down-ballot campaign in which candidates will share voter registration, field organizing, early voting and turnout efforts ahead of November’s elections.

Shapiro said the election would determine not only the direction of Pennsylvania but also whether Democrats will be able to take power in Washington, D.C.

“We have an opportunity here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the birthplace of our democracy, the swingiest swing state in the country, to decide what the future of the Congress of the United States looks like and to be a model for good governance right here in Harrisburg,” he said.

According to a Pennsylvania Democratic Party memo, the party will spend $3.3 million to expand an operation that now includes 27 field offices and nearly 100 full-time organizers in battleground communities across the state. The campaign will also include targeted outreach to “low-propensity voters,” according to the party.

Democrats hope the effort will help flip four Republican-held congressional seats — more pickup opportunities than in any other state. Republicans won three of those seats in 2024 by extremely narrow margins. That includes U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, who represents Harrisburg and is being challenged by Janelle Stelson, a former TV news anchor, who ran against Perry in 2024, losing by less than 1%.

Perry “does whatever Donald Trump tells him to, including backing this war of choice in Iran,” Shapiro told the crowd, noting that two U.S. service members were killed in action Friday.

“I want someone who is going to courageously stand up and ask the right questions, demand answers, who’s going to think of those American service members first, who’s going to understand the pain that this war is creating right here at home at the gas pump, and a whole lot of other areas,” he said.

In her speech at the event, Stelson said domestic issues important to Pennsylvanians are going unattended by Washington, D.C.

“Hopefully you have a house over your head, a roof over your head and, now, gas because of the war in Iran,” she said. “People are being forced in many cases to make choices now. ‘Do I pay for the groceries or the health care my son needs?’ And that’s not the way we should be living in America. And we should not have a U.S. representative, a congressman, who put us in that kind of position.”

Democrats are also seeking to wrest control of the state Senate from Republicans while also preserving their narrow majority in the Pennsylvania House. Accomplishing that would give the party unified control of state government for the first time in roughly three decades, enabling them to pass pieces of Shapiro’s agenda, such as raising the state minimum wage, legalizing cannabis and changing the funding structure of public transit, including SEPTA.