(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)
The gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania, a swing state with one of the most important bellwether counties in national elections, isn’t going so well for Republicans. Stacy Garrity, state treasurer and the GOP nominee for governor, is lagging in the polls and failing to spark enthusiasm among the top party officials who should be some of her most important allies against Democratic incumbent Josh Shapiro.
“Well, I don’t know, I think Gov. Shapiro has a pretty strong position there,” Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) told me. “I like Stacy. I think her background is perfect for what she’s running for, so we’ll see. We’ll see.”
“Right now, if you were to talk to most people, they would think that [Shapiro] has an incredible amount of money in his war chest, and I don’t think Stacy has a lot of money,” Kelly added. “She has a lot of talent.”
Kelly was bearish on Garrity’s gubernatorial bid, noting that from what he’s seen in the northwest part of Pennsylvania, “it was always gonna be an uphill battle anyways, because Gov. Shapiro worked pretty hard in the last election.”
Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) also invoked the imagery of “an uphill battle” to describe Garrity’s attempt to unseat the governor, adding that Shapiro is a formidable candidate.
“He’s a leader of the neo-Democrat party—certainly not your father’s Democrat party,” Meuser told me. “We have seen some polls that were in the single digits. Then, of course, I’ve seen them as well that are at sixteen, seventeen [points],” he continued, describing the gap that Garrity would need to close to catch up with Shapiro. “Well, because incumbency in Pennsylvania—in the governor’s office—it means a lot. . . . So there is that.”
Meuser also suggested that Shapiro enjoys the support even of some Republicans—cautious ones who expect the governor to win re-election, and who want to avoid alienating or antagonizing him at the start of a new four-year term.
“Josh plays rough,” he said, sounding a note of grudging respect. “He holds it against those that don’t support him, and people are checking the risk.”
Meuser concluded by saying he is very much behind Garrity, noting that if Pennsylvanians were to put her in the governor’s mansion, the state would begin a shift to more closely align with the economically upwardly mobile parts of the American South.
“But if we truly want Pennsylvania to be in the realm of Georgia, Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, if we want our young people to stop fleeing the commonwealth for better-paying jobs and better lives, hopefully we’ll get that and elect Stacy Garrity,” Meuser said.
Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), who’s struggling through his own tough race, told me he’s witnessed some enthusiasm for Garrity among voters in some regions.
“I see when she does an event in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it’s well-attended,” Bresnahan said. “And I don’t think Northeastern Pennsylvania reflects the attitudes of Philadelphia. So I think the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a very big state.”
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat representing the region just west of Philadelphia, doesn’t seem terribly bothered that there might be hidden reserves of Garrity voters hiding in the rural parts of the state. She joked about the enthusiasm gap in the contest for governor: “I’d urge [Republicans] to spend heavily on all their bad races.”
Scanlon has reason to be cavalier. Shapiro’s lead over Garrity is, by all accounts, staggering. In late August, three separate polls showed Garrity trailing Shapiro by double digits. A PennLive/Bravo Group poll had Garrity behind by 31 points, a Franklin & Marshall College poll found a 25-point gap, and a New York Times poll had Shapiro leading by 16.
From a financial perspective, Garrity assumed the nomination with a ten-to-one disadvantage in fundraising. As of last week, Shapiro still held a $16 million lead, which can buy up a lot of airtime across the state.
In other swing states, such as Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, Democrats are also leading their opponents. But those races are significantly tighter. The wider the gap between Garrity and Shapiro gets, the likelier Republicans are to write off the race as a lost cause.
You could get your news from an algorithm. You came here instead because you want to know what’s actually going on. Keep up with all our original reporting, sharp analysis, and honest commentary—become a member today.
When Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) lost his primary last month, it looked like the Republican voters of Florida’s 7th Congressional District were hoping to turn the page on unethical representation in Washington. Unfortunately for them, just a few pages later, they have discovered that Mills’s likely replacement might have some ethical problems of his own.
According to Florida Politics, Republican Ryan Elijah is now the subject of an ethics complaint alleging he is subverting proper candidate disclosure laws.
Sarah Austin, an Oviedo woman in Florida’s 7th Congressional District, said Elijah, a former television news anchor, failed to report details on up to $5.1 million in personal assets listed in his financial disclosures.
Elijah on June 14 reported his net worth included a Fidelity 401(k) account worth between $1 million and $5 million, as well as a Charles Schwab retirement account worth between $50,000 and $100,000. But he didn’t disclose where any of that value was derived.
“For neither account did Mr. Elijah identify a single underlying asset. No stock, no bond, no mutual fund, no exchange-traded fund, no cash position,” Austin’s complaint reads.
That’s a violation of House rules, which require disclosure of each asset, not just the existence of an account.
Elijah’s campaign said it was all an honest mistake and that corrections would be forthcoming. Still, Austin noted in her complaint that the filing is indicative of behavior meant to withhold information.
“The pattern is what makes the omission conspicuous. Mr. Elijah itemized six individual equity and option positions, each worth between $1,001 and $15,000,” Austin wrote. “He did not itemize the account worth up to $5,000,000—an account reported at up to three hundred times the value of the largest position he did name. Whatever else may be said, he plainly knows how to list a holding.”
This is hardly a scandal compared to Mills’s numerous problems, including a restraining order barring contact with his former girlfriend, getting caught with sex workers on a trip while a congressional candidate, and a litany of potential federal violations, including his own improprieties in financial disclosures. But in a district where corruption and general scumbaggery appear rampant, Elijah would be wise to follow every law to the letter.
The pitch for prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket is pretty simple: Get rich quick by predicting gambling on everything from sports to the weather to instances of geopolitical instability. But while millions of dollars are sloshing around in the companies’ betting pools, savvy operators know the real money—and the safer bet—appears to be in those companies’ more traditional activities in Washington: lobbying.
Kalshi spent more than $900,000 on lobbying last quarter, which funded both its in-house efforts and those of twenty-two individually named external lobbyists at seven firms. Polymarket, Kalshi’s largest competitor, spent one-tenth as much—just $90,000 contracting three lobbyists. But their policy goals are essentially the same.
Beyond the money they’re pouring into traditional K Street influence peddling, prediction market companies are also spending big on advertising and partnership deals, as well as softer PR engagement, like hosting pop-up bars for journalists and policy professionals to guzzle some free beers under possibly malfunctioning displays of real-time prediction market data.
At the same time, former members of Congress and active congressional candidates have been caught trading on the prediction market platforms with inside information, prompting a scramble for enforcement, fines, and even a lifetime ban, in the case of inveterate fraudster George Santos.
As far as regulation goes, Congress has introduced a few bills. But those aren’t being treated as policy priorities. Perhaps the lobbying is paying off.