{"id":112247,"date":"2026-02-12T18:21:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/112247\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T18:21:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:21:06","slug":"takeaways-from-josh-shapiro-and-stacy-garritys-campaign-finance-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/112247\/","title":{"rendered":"Takeaways from Josh Shapiro and Stacy Garrity’s campaign finance reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> is racking up contributions from out-of-state billionaires as well as thousands of individual donors across the country.<\/p>\n

His likely Republican challenger, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity<\/a>, meanwhile, is capturing small-donor donations from Pennsylvanians. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to an analysis of the latest campaign finance filings in the Pennsylvania governor\u2019s contest, as a clearer picture of the race emerges nine months out from Election Day. Shapiro entered 2026 with $30 million on hand<\/a> \u2014 money raised over several years as he has built a national profile \u2014 while Garrity raised $1.5 million<\/a> in her first five months on the campaign trail<\/a>, as she tries to unseat the popular Democratic incumbent. Last year, Shapiro brought in $23.3 million.<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: The race between Josh Shapiro and Stacy Garrity for Pa. governor has officially begun. Here\u2019s what you need to know.<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are three takeaways from the first campaign finance filings in the race, tracking fundraising heading into 2026.<\/p>\n

Almost all of Stacy Garrity\u2019s contributors are from Pennsylvania, while 62% of Shapiro\u2019s are in state<\/p>\n

Nearly all of Garrity\u2019s individual 1,155 contributors \u2014 more than 97% \u2014 live in Pennsylvania, and on average gave $889 each.<\/p>\n

Shapiro \u2014 who has amassed a national following and is a rumored 2028 Democratic presidential hopeful<\/a> \u2014 had a much further reach and attracted many more donors from around the country. He received contributions from 4,981 individual donors, 62% of whom are from Pennsylvania. The average individual donor to Shapiro contributed $3,461, a number buoyed by multiple six- and seven-figure contributions.<\/p>\n

Shapiro received most of his remaining individual donations from California (7.1%), New York (6.3%), New Jersey (2.5%), Florida (2.5%) and Massachusetts (2.4%), according to an Inquirer analysis.<\/p>\n

(The analysis includes only donors who contributed more than $50 in 2025. Campaigns are only required to list individual donors who contribute above that threshold.)<\/p>\n

Shapiro\u2019s broad donor base is a result of his status as a popular incumbent governor<\/a> who is liked among people of both political parties, said Robin Kolodny, a Temple University<\/a> political science professor who focuses on campaign finance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese amounts that you\u2019re seeing is a very strong signal that \u2018This is our guy,\u2019\u201d Kolodny said. \u201cThat underscores he is a popular incumbent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kolodny also noted that Shapiro\u2019s state-level fundraising cannot be transferred to a federal political action committee should he decide to run in 2028<\/a>. But his war chest shows his ability to fundraise nationally and his popularity as the leader of the state, she added. <\/p>\n

Only a small percentage of the population contributes to political campaigns, Kolodny said. And sometimes, it\u2019s the smallest contributions that pay off the most, she said. Small-dollar donations suggest grassroots support that can translate into a person assisting the campaign in additional ways to get out the vote, she said.<\/p>\n

Both Shapiro and Garrity have received a significant number of small-dollar donations that illustrate some level of excitement in the race \u2014 though Shapiro\u2019s more than 3,000 in-state donors outnumbers Garrity\u2019s total by nearly 3-to-1. <\/p>\n

\u201cThink of fundraising as not just a money grab, but also as a campaign strategy,\u201d Kolodny said.<\/p>\n

Since announcing his reelection campaign in January, Shapiro has run targeted social media ads and sent fundraising texts since announcing his reelection campaign, asking for supporters to \u201cchip in\u201d $1 or $5. The strategy worked, bringing in $400,000 in the first two days of his reelection campaign announcement, with an average contribution of $41, according to Shapiro\u2019s campaign. This funding is not reflected in his 2025 campaign finance report.<\/p>\n

Most of Shapiro\u2019s money came from out-of-state donors, including billionaires Mike Bloomberg and a George Soros PAC<\/p>\n

While Shapiro garnered thousands of individual contributions from Pennsylvania in all 67 counties, according to his campaign, the latest filings show it was the big-money checks from out-of-state billionaires that ran up his total.<\/p>\n

Approximately 64% of the $23.3 million Shapiro raised last year came from out-of-state donors.<\/p>\n

And more than half \u2014 57% \u2014 of Shapiro\u2019s total raised came from six- or seven-figure contributions by powerful PACs or billionaire donors. <\/p>\n

By contrast, only 31% of Garrity\u2019s total fundraising came from six-figure contributions.<\/p>\n

The biggest single contribution in the governor\u2019s race came from billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave Shapiro $2.5 million last year. <\/p>\n

Shapiro also received $1 million from a political action committee led by billionaire Democratic supporter George Soros; and $500,000 from Kathryn and James Murdoch, from the powerful family of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.<\/p>\n

Kolodny noted that big contributions from people like Bloomberg are a drop in the bucket of Bloomberg\u2019s total political or philanthropic spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not something extraordinary,\u201d Kolodny said. \u201cHe\u2019s got nothing but money.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, Shapiro received notably high contributions from Philadelphia Phillies owner John Middleton<\/a>, who gave $125,000 and Nemacolin Resort owner Maggie Hardy, who gave $250,000, among others. He also received a number of five-figure contributions from private equity officials, venture capitalists, and industry executives in life sciences, construction, and more.<\/p>\n

Garrity\u2019s single biggest donation was $250,000 from University City<\/a> Housing Co., a real estate firm providing housing near Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania<\/a>. Her largest contributions from individuals included $50,000 from her finance chair Bob Asher, of Asher Chocolates, and another $50,000 from Alfred Barbour, a retired executive from Concast Metal Products.<\/p>\n

Garrity has served as Pennsylvania\u2019s state treasurer since 2020 and has led the little-known statewide office with little controversy<\/a>. She didn\u2019t join the race for governor until August and fundraised only a fraction of what Shapiro did in that same time. Meanwhile, Shapiro spent 2025 at the political forefront as a moderate Democrat trying to challenge President Donald Trump<\/a> in a state that helped elect him. Shapiro also benefited from his national name recognition after he was considered for Vice President <\/a>Kamala Harris<\/a>\u2019 running mate in 2024.<\/p>\n

Shapiro has so far outraised Garrity 30-to-1, and top Pennsylvania Republicans<\/a> have said they want to see Garrity fundraising more aggressively nationally. <\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Facing an uphill battle against Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s $30 million war chest, Stacy Garrity still has to convince top Republicans she\u2019s worth investing in<\/a><\/p>\n

Kolodny said Garrity\u2019s low fundraising is a reflection of the state of the race: Republicans put up a weak candidate in 2022 against Shapiro<\/a> during his first run for governor, and now many powerful donors want to keep the relationship they\u2019ve formed with Shapiro over the last three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will reflect as a lack of enthusiasm for her,\u201d Kolodny said. \u201cNow she could turn that around, but from what I see, I don\u2019t see her that much, only recently. She had the last six months, she could have done a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Controversy over donations tied to associates of Jeffrey Epstein<\/p>\n

Shapiro\u2019s top contributions from individual donors also included a $500,000 check from Reid Hoffman, the Silicon Valley-based billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn. His name showed up thousands of times in the trove of documents recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice<\/a> related to the department\u2019s investigation into financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. <\/p>\n

Garrity has highlighted the donations Shapiro received from Hoffman, and has publicly called on Shapiro to return the tech billionaire\u2019s campaign contributions from last year and prior years, totaling more than $2 million since 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hoffman has claimed he had only a fundraising relationship with Epstein, but publicly admitted he had visited his island. He has not been charged with any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Shapiro said Garrity should \u201cstop playing politics with the Epstein files.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump is mentioned in the files over 5,000 times. Is she going to ask him to rescind his endorsement?\u201d asked Manuel Bonder, Shapiro\u2019s spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Garrity has previously downplayed Trump\u2019s appearance in the Epstein files, and argued that Democrats<\/a> would have released them much sooner if there was clear evidence of Trump partaking in any inappropriate behavior. <\/p>\n

Trump endorsed Garrity for governor last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If Shapiro were to return the funds from Hoffman, it would be bad for Garrity, Kolodny said, because she has made very few other political attacks against him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s her [main] issue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is racking up contributions from out-of-state billionaires as well as thousands of individual donors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[53644,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-112247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-governor-election-campaign-donations-shapiro-garrity","9":"tag-pennsylvania","10":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","11":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}