![\"Stacy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/01n7-skg1-r07j-0jfd.jpeg\" "\\"Stacy")
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Stacy Garrity speaks during an April, 2026 event on unclaimed property at Treasury\u2019s vault.<\/p>\n
Commonwealth Media Services<\/p>\n
Spotlight PA<\/a> is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n HARRISBURG \u2014 In Stacy Garrity\u2019s first run for statewide office, she quickly learned that nobody really expected her to win \u2014 including her own party.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a sacrificial lamb,\u201d she told the audience of a live podcast taping earlier this year. \u201cOf course, I didn\u2019t know that, because I was a rookie.\u201d<\/p>\n That 2020 campaign for state treasurer, in which Garrity took on a better-known, better-funded incumbent Democrat and won, is an essential part of the pitch she\u2019s making to voters as she seeks to win a second, even more improbable upset.<\/p>\n As she has said in interviews throughout the campaign, compared to her opponent, she may have less cash for ads and events, she may not be as polished, but she\u2019s a hard worker.<\/p>\n \u201cI just worked and went to everything,\u201d she told the podcast audience of her 2020 campaign. \u201cI worked as hard as I could, and we squeaked it out.\u201d<\/p>\n But in the 2026 race for governor, Garrity isn\u2019t facing a one-term state treasurer. She\u2019s up against Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a>, who is perhaps the most prominent politician to come out of Pennsylvania since Joe Biden.<\/p>\n Shapiro is such a dominant force in his party that no other Democrat challenged him in either of his gubernatorial primaries; few members of his party will even say a critical word about him on the record. As of June, his cash on hand was over 34 times Garrity\u2019s. His reelection bid has garnered national attention only because it is seen as a preview of his assumed 2028 run for president. In those stories, Garrity is an afterthought.<\/p>\n But Garrity is adamant hers isn\u2019t a losing campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I thought I was going to be a sacrificial lamb, believe me, I wouldn\u2019t run,\u201d she told Spotlight PA. \u201cI don\u2019t need the title.\u201d<\/p>\n In her quest to unseat Shapiro, Garrity is leaning into her underdog status and a folksy narrative about her background \u2014 often saying she is the first state row officer from a rural county in more than 40 years, and noting she still lives in Bradford County.<\/p>\n But a closer look at Garrity\u2019s time in the military, her career with a global corporation, and her role managing tens of billions in state dollars as treasurer reveals a different picture \u2014 of an ambitious politician who has, in a relatively short time, managed to enmesh herself firmly in Pennsylvania\u2019s Republican establishment.<\/p>\n Allies and opponents, from a former Garrity staffer to Democrats familiar with her work, told Spotlight PA that Garrity has been a competent state treasurer who is genuinely committed to fiscal stewardship. Under her leadership, the office received a coveted gold rating for its 529 college and career savings program, returned<\/a> more than $1 billion in unclaimed property, and has remained scandal-free.<\/p>\n She has also been unabashedly political over the years. Garrity is a committed conservative with beliefs rooted in her Christian faith, and closely aligns herself with President Donald Trump. \u201cWho doesn\u2019t want to make America great again?\u201d she asked Spotlight PA in a recent interview.<\/p>\n Garrity sold \u201cDefund Planned Parenthood\u201d T-shirts during her first campaign, and posted on Facebook<\/a> in 2022 that the end of Roe v. Wade would be \u201ca great day for the sanctity of life.\u201d She told Spotlight PA that the free market should solve environmental issues and that \u201cof course there\u2019s climate change, but I\u2019m not sure as to what extent.\u201d She questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election on multiple occasions, saying at one 2022 political rally<\/a> that Trump defeated Biden.<\/p>\n And she has aggressively sought Trump\u2019s support and association. The public attention the president has paid to the race has been scattered \u2014 after Garrity introduced him for a June speech in the Lehigh Valley, Trump didn\u2019t mention her at all; at another recent event he noted that Shapiro is \u201cexpected to win.\u201d In early August, however, Garrity was in the Oval Office and appeared in a short video<\/a>, grinning over the president\u2019s shoulder while he reiterated an endorsement and called her \u201ca spectacular person.\u201d<\/p>\n Garrity has a mixed record of MAGA alignment, pivoting often as she\u2019s nailed down a platform during this run for governor, and backtracking on many previous positions.<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t think I have any extreme views,\u201d she said, when asked to define her politics.<\/p>\n She has waved away her comments questioning election results, telling reporters<\/a> earlier this year, \u201cThat was at a Trump rally and those are kind of fun things \u2026 So it\u2019s easy to get caught up.\u201d She recently told ABC27<\/a> that there were \u201cirregularities\u201d in 2020, and when Spotlight PA pressed for specifics, said she was referring to confusing guidance from the state.<\/p>\n She also has said she<\/a> would \u201crespect\u201d Pennsylvania\u2019s current abortion law. And after saying Trump\u2019s tariffs on other countries could lead to a more prosperous U.S. in the long-term, she told Spotlight PA she \u201cwould handle tariffs differently\u201d to allow U.S. manufacturers to more easily get the raw materials they need.<\/p>\n Shapiro is betting that Garrity\u2019s proximity to the unpopular president will hurt her, releasing a round of campaign ads<\/a> in August \u2014 his first to directly acknowledge her \u2014 calling Garrity \u201c100% MAGA.\u201d<\/p>\n Garrity is going with the narrative that Shapiro is untrustworthy. Her campaign is teasing an unconventional series<\/a> of digital videos it says will \u201cexpose terrible lies\u201d related to the governor. Its first de rigueur TV ad<\/a> of the campaign cycle bashed Shapiro for his support for building data centers in Pennsylvania (the governor\u2019s campaign would be quick to point out Garrity\u2019s own record<\/a> on the issue).<\/p>\n If Garrity\u2019s fundraising continues to be weak, she won\u2019t be able to afford many more ads to get her message out. She told Spotlight PA, she\u2019s banking on some presidential assistance.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019s going to spend a lot of time here in Pennsylvania, because he knows how important Pennsylvania is, and I think that he will get the base, you know, excited to come out,\u201d Garrity said. \u201cI\u2019m told that we\u2019re going to get help.\u201d<\/p>\n From Bradford to Brunt\u00e1l<\/p>\n On a recent summer evening, Garrity stopped by a Dauphin County farm to announce a coalition of agriculture insiders would back her candidacy. Entering a garage, she was greeted by a few dozen people.<\/p>\n As she often does on the campaign trail, she used her speech to emphasize her rural bona fides.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the daughter of Bradford County, so I care about rural Pennsylvania because you are my neighbors,\u201d she told the crowd. \u201cI will absolutely prioritize agriculture because I know firsthand the impact that you have on our communities, and I relate to our farming communities because I was raised in one of those very small towns.\u201d<\/p>\n Her supporters also tout her rural roots. Samuel E. Hayes Jr., a former state secretary of agriculture, told the audience in Dauphin County that Garrity would have U.S. farmers\u2019 backs by banning international companies or people from buying Pennsylvania farmland.<\/p>\n \u201cShe grew up as a country girl, and let me tell you this: She knows the difference between a Hereford and a John Deere,\u201d Hayes said, referring to an English type of cattle and a tractor. \u201cNot every politician, not every governor, knows the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Growing up in Sayre, a borough of about 5,300 people near Pennsylvania\u2019s northern border, Garrity was a Girl Scout, cheerleader, softball player, track and field athlete, and honor roll student, local newspaper clippings show. She is the oldest of four sisters, two of whom joined her as part of the \u201cGarrity Trio,\u201d traveling with their grandmother and singing at local church functions when they were young.<\/p>\n She had an early interest in politics. Every election cycle growing up, her mother made pizza, and the family would stay up and watch election returns \u201cas long as we could make it,\u201d she told Spotlight PA.<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents, we always talked about current events,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I would say I always had an interest in what was going on politically. I was just never involved, because you really can\u2019t when you\u2019re in the military \u2014 or it\u2019s tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n Garrity studied finance and economics at Bloomsburg University near Wilkes-Barre, where she said she was the first person in her family to attend college. She jokes<\/a> that while she was in school, her father tricked her into meeting with a military recruiter, which led to her joining the Reserve Officers\u2019 Training Corps.<\/p>\n She became an officer in the Army Reserves after graduating college at 22. Soon after<\/a>, she also started working as a cost accountant at Global Tungsten & Powders, an international metal refinery and manufacturer based in Bradford County.<\/p>\n Her first overseas deployment came in 1991, when she was sent to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody was afraid of chemical warfare,\u201d Garrity told Spotlight PA. \u201cI was really young, and I went over, and of course I was nervous like everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n Garrity assisted in detainee operations, she said, which led to a more prominent role leading the processing of incoming and outgoing prisoners of war at Iraq\u2019s largest internment camp during her second deployment in 2003. It was during this time that she reported<\/a> one of the most egregious instances of prisoner abuse at the detention facility, Camp Bucca.<\/p>\n In her third and final deployment, Garrity was second in command at Camp Bucca, then took temporary charge of the prison after the leading officer was relocated to another mission. She stayed in the Army Reserves until she said she hit her mandatory retirement age in 2016, having reached the rank of colonel and been awarded the Legion of Merit and two Bronze Stars.<\/p>\n Between deployments, Garrity rose in the accounting and marketing ranks at Global Tungsten & Powders.<\/p>\n By 2010, she was named director of the sales and marketing department. She also helped run the company\u2019s facility in Brunt\u00e1l, Czech Republic, though she did not live there. Garrity filled those roles, leading her to travel frequently around the world, as recently as 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n In her time as director, Global Tungsten & Powders cut the workforce at its Towanda plant from around 950 employees in 2012<\/a> to roughly 500 in 2019<\/a> through multiple rounds of layoffs. Garrity\u2019s campaign said she was not involved in those decisions.<\/p>\n Then she was named a vice president of the company. Garrity was in charge of governmental affairs, and publicly took credit<\/a> for advocating for federal lawmakers to adopt a policy that blocked the U.S. from purchasing tungsten products from potential enemies, like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.<\/p>\n But Garrity has downplayed<\/a> her involvement in getting that policy passed \u2014 possibly her greatest accomplishment in the private sector \u2014 to avert the potential negative perception that she did not formally register as a lobbyist.<\/p>\n While she has mostly left the private sector, Garrity has maintained her membership on the board of ECM, an insurance company. It\u2019s a paid position, and as The Philadelphia Inquirer reported<\/a>, one that could yield her six figures. She told the publication she would resign from the board if elected governor.<\/p>\n A \u2018competitive\u2019 streak drove Garrity as treasurer<\/p>\n If she hadn\u2019t hit her mandatory military retirement age in 2016, Garrity said she never would have run for public office.<\/p>\n Speaking to Spotlight PA after a spring campaign event in Butler County, she recounted the decision, laughing: \u201cMy husband looks at me \u2014 second weekend home \u2014 and he said, \u2018Don\u2019t you have somewhere you have to be?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout a year goes by and it was great, and then I felt like, wow really being in the military, that public service, I started to realize that made up a big part of my life and I missed it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n After consulting a longtime friend, state Rep. Tina Pickett (R., Bradford), Garrity said she hopped into a crowded Republican primary for a 2019 congressional special election, in which party insiders did not select her from a field of 12 other candidates.<\/p>\n But her name circulated among Pennsylvania Republicans, some of whom she said soon called her to run for the Treasury seat in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cI said no for like four months,\u201d Garrity said. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t find anybody, and so I put it on my church prayer chain \u2014 not that I was gonna win and money\u2019s gonna come down from heaven \u2014 but that the doors would open up if I was going to make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n The doors did open. Garrity\u2019s husband was on board, and critically, her boss at Global Tungsten gave her the flexibility to mount a campaign.<\/p>\n Garrity focused on her business background when she joined the race for Treasurer, said Democrats had controlled the office for too long \u2014 it had been 15 years since the last Republican served \u2014 and criticized state leaders for spending money that hadn\u2019t been formally appropriated through the legislative process.<\/p>\n She allied herself with Trump early on. Asked what the president\u2019s most important work had been at a September 2020 Trump rally in central Pennsylvania, she said<\/a> it was appointing justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. \u201cI\u2019m very excited for a Christian, pro-life constitutionalist on the bench,\u201d Garrity said, referring to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was then Trump\u2019s newly announced pick.<\/p>\n She also argued<\/a> her Democratic opponent, incumbent Joe Torsella, was only using Treasury as a springboard to higher office \u2014 the same charge she often levies against Shapiro.<\/p>\n When Garrity took office though, former staffers said she didn\u2019t completely overhaul Treasury. For one, she kept Torsella\u2019s chief of staff, a Democrat, among other personnel.<\/p>\n Multiple staffers also said partisanship didn\u2019t seem to be the dominant driver in her work \u2014 it was a desire to be the best.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is absolutely a foundational element of Treasurer Garrity\u2019s personality that she is competitive,\u201d said Erik Arneson, who worked for Garrity throughout her first term as her communications director and is now a state Senate Republican staffer.<\/p>\n (Shapiro also often describes himself as extremely competitive).<\/p>\n That was a big part of Garrity\u2019s work on 529 college and career savings accounts, according to Arneson. Under her tenure, the program was upgraded to a gold rating \u2014 one of just five gold-rated 529 savings plans<\/a> in the country. Garrity was \u201cvery focused\u201d on that rating and on the long-term stability of the program, Arneson said. The office also eliminated the minimum deposit to open a 529 account, lowered minimum contribution amounts, and reduced fees.<\/p>\n Garrity also preserved some of the former Democratic treasurer\u2019s priorities. Pennsylvania\u2019s treasurer sits on the boards of the state\u2019s massive public pension funds, and a major initiative during Torsella\u2019s tenure was convincing those boards to move away from hiring expensive private money managers, who promised market-beating returns but often hadn\u2019t delivered<\/a>. Garrity said she was skeptical of these outside managers too \u2014 after a 2021 meeting at which she voted against paying a private equity firm more money, The Inquirer reported<\/a> that a spokesperson, Arneson, said she was \u201cvery concerned about private equity investments due to the high costs and inherent risk.\u201d<\/p>\n After Torsella was reappointed to the PSERS board, Garrity joined him and state Sen. Katie Muth (D., Montgomery) as a pro-reform bloc. Torsella and Garrity even jointly filed friend-of-the-court briefs<\/a> in Muth\u2019s lawsuit seeking more transparency from PSERS, and the three were part of a push<\/a> to replace the fund\u2019s leadership as it faced an FBI investigation in 2021.<\/p>\n (Muth, who is still pursuing that lawsuit, told Spotlight PA she feels Garrity has since become less committed to pushing PSERS to reform; leadership in the fund has turned over in the last several years.)<\/p>\n Arneson worked closely with Garrity as her communications director during her first term.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously there are partisan things people can say that they like or don\u2019t like about what she did, but nobody could ever make a legitimate claim that she was not focused on being the best effing treasurer she could possibly be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Partisanship did enter into Garrity\u2019s approach to the job, however.<\/p>\n From the beginning of her first term, she was an active member of the State Financial Officers Foundation, a national conservative nonprofit that works with treasurers and other public officials. Its priorities include support for the Israeli government and opposition to environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, initiatives \u2014 investment strategies in which the goal is to push corporations to change their behavior.<\/p>\n Garrity pursued both of those priorities. After boosting the state\u2019s Israel Bonds investments by $45 million, she campaigned<\/a> at an Israel Bonds gala. She told Spotlight PA the investments, which came after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, were simply a sound financial decision.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve never defaulted, they pay an above-market rate of return and, and \u2026 if you can get a good return on your investment, and at the same time support our biggest ally, our only ally in the Middle East, then why not do it? It\u2019s a win-win,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In 2021, Garrity\u2019s then-chief investment officer warned her in a memo that Israel Bonds could actually be risky because of political instability and the fact that they aren\u2019t traded on the open market, according to emails obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n Garrity also signed on to a number of letters organized by SFOF and other conservative groups opposing ESG efforts. One<\/a> urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to discourage shareholders from trying to pressure companies into \u201cDEI practices that erode shareholder value.\u201d Another<\/a> opposed a proposed SEC rule to require companies to disclose climate-related information, like risks that could affect operations. And another<\/a> opposed what it called \u201cThe Woke 401(k) Rule\u201d from the Biden administration.<\/p>\n During last year\u2019s extended state budget impasse, Garrity inserted herself into the proceedings, an unusual step for a treasurer.<\/p>\n She used unallocated state dollars to set up a $500 million program that offered loans to counties, nonprofits, and some other state-funded entities that had their usual payments frozen. Those loans were on offer at a 4.5% interest rate, and recipients had to pay them back within 15 days of the budget\u2019s signing. The move prompted lawmakers that year to bar<\/a> the Treasury from doing so in the future.<\/p>\n The Garrity program was widely seen as a political gesture meant to offer a contrast to Shapiro, who at the time was negotiating to end the budget impasse \u2014 something Garrity denies.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was absolutely not political,\u201d she said, arguing that when it comes time to vote for a governor in November, \u201cNobody\u2019s going to remember what I did last year \u2026 and largely, those people I was supporting, they\u2019re not going to vote for me anyway. I did it because it was the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Garrity also initially denied the Shapiro administration\u2019s attempt<\/a> earlier this year to use public dollars to pay for security upgrades at the governor\u2019s private residence, saying the Treasury didn\u2019t have legal authority to authorize it. She eventually relented<\/a> \u201cto prevent costly litigation\u201d with vendors, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has two kinds of instincts, and sometimes they compete with each other,\u201d Arneson acknowledged. \u201cOne of her instincts is, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m a Republican, I\u2019m fiscally conservative, I believe in X, Y and Z, and those are important things to me, and so I want to talk about them.\u2019 On the other hand, she knows that 98 \u2014 I don\u2019t know, some massive percentage of the work at Treasury \u2014 has nothing to do with any of that, and it\u2019s about running a good program.\u201d<\/p>\n So what is this campaign actually about?<\/p>\n It is possible to be a Pennsylvania row officer and participate minimally in partisan politics. Garrity\u2019s fellow Republican, Auditor General Tim DeFoor, rarely makes public comments that aren\u2019t related to his job.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not Garrity. Charlie Gerow, a longtime GOP strategist who himself ran for governor several years ago, distinctly remembers her entry into the public sphere.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was everywhere. She was ubiquitous,\u201d he said. \u201cShe showed up at every Republican function, every county fair, every major historical event, every demonstration. You can\u2019t imagine how many times I saw her here, there, and everywhere. And I think people took notice of the fact that she was so tenacious in meeting and greeting the people of Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n It was also immediately clear, Gerow said, that Garrity \u201cenjoyed it, wanted to be part of it, and wanted to advance herself.\u201d<\/p>\n But Garrity\u2019s ambition and connections may not be enough to compete against Shapiro.<\/p>\n Along with a message that Shapiro is untrustworthy, the vision for Pennsylvania that Garrity is trying to promote focuses heavily on the state\u2019s rural areas \u2014 speeding up permitting for farmers, increasing natural gas production, and putting a moratorium on data center development, a rapidly growing concern from the Pocono Mountains<\/a> to small towns and suburbs<\/a>. Alternatives to public schools are also in the mix.<\/p>\n Some of these priorities overlap with Shapiro\u2019s. The governor has made speeding up permitting a plank of his administration, and described his approach to energy production as \u201call of the above.\u201d Garrity argues permitting is still too slow, and says the state should allow drilling on public land.<\/p>\n She told Spotlight PA that her \u201cpassion has always been the U.S. industrial base\u201d \u2014 reshoring jobs and trying to get people to buy American goods \u2014 something she got to work on at Global Tungsten.<\/p>\n \u201cWith all the blessings that we have in Pennsylvania \u2014 the best, hardest working people, the world-class industries, and natural resources, they are truly the envy of the world \u2026 we shouldn\u2019t be squandering our blessings \u2026 we can be so much more,\u201d she told Spotlight PA.<\/p>\n But with little money on hand, it\u2019s hard to communicate that message to voters \u2014 a reality members of Garrity\u2019s own party readily admit. For all Garrity\u2019s insistence that the president will help her campaign, running an underdog race is difficult.<\/p>\n Jason High knows that. He was campaign manager for Republican Scott Wagner, a former state senator who unsuccessfully attempted to oust Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in 2018. The race didn\u2019t go especially well; its culmination, in many ways, was a video Wagner released on his Facebook page a month before Election Day, standing on the side of the road and saying he wanted to stomp Wolf\u2019s face<\/a> with golf spikes.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t help. Wagner went on to lose by more than 17 points.<\/p>\n The challenge when running against an incumbent as popular as Wolf or Shapiro is that \u201ceverybody thinks you\u2019re going to lose,\u201d High said.<\/p>\n That makes it hard to raise money. Wagner was somewhat insulated from that reality because he was independently wealthy and could self-fund. Asked if she could do the same, Garrity laughed. \u201cYou know I\u2019m middle class, right?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A loss can become \u201ca self-fulfilling prophecy,\u201d High said. \u201cThe enthusiasm\u2019s not there. In meeting after meeting, largely with donors, but also at committee dinners and things, you have to find a way to build a case to show people you can win. And sometimes it\u2019s very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to Shapiro, High said, that\u2019s doubly true. The governor is \u201cuniquely strong, uniquely well-financed, has obvious national aspirations. He\u2019s just a unique character.\u201d<\/p>\n That dynamic has been apparent in campaign finance reports. Overall lopsidedness aside, the kinds of donors the two candidates have attracted are striking, as are the size of their gifts.<\/p>\n Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave Shapiro $2.5 million; he has also gotten millions from large Pennsylvania unions. And wealthy business people, including Phillies owner John Middleton, have given hundreds of thousands. Garrity has some big donors \u2014 longtime GOP power broker and candymaker Bob Asher gave hundreds of thousands personally and through a PAC he runs \u2014 but they are much fewer.<\/p>\n There are some signs within those campaign finance reports that Garrity is winning over select donors who could be helpful.<\/p>\n Her most recent filing shows that she accepted a $33,500 in-kind contribution of a \u201cflight\u201d from Pace-O-Matic founder Michael Pace, dated May 11. Pace-O-Matic is a Georgia-based skill games developer that has poured millions of dollars into lobbying and influencing key Pennsylvania elections amid a debate over regulating and taxing the machines. (The state\u2019s high court found skill games to be illegal gambling devices<\/a> last month).<\/p>\n In an interview with Spotlight PA, Garrity expressed sympathy with the skill games lobby\u2019s main argument \u2014 that the bars, restaurants, and other organizations that host the devices will suffer financially if they\u2019re heavily taxed.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that the Supreme Court has ruled, I think it\u2019s important that as legislators decide how they\u2019re going to proceed, that they keep in mind it\u2019s not just about the skill games operators, it\u2019s also about our local businesses, our VFWs, our legions, our Elks [Lodges], and small restaurants that really benefit from games of skill,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey do so much to help their community, so I would always put their interests first,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n A weak performance at the top of the ticket could damage Republicans\u2019 chances statewide in a year with a lot at stake. Democrats believe the state Senate, which Republicans have held for decades, is in play. If they\u2019re right, they could gain trifecta control of state government \u2014 the first time either party has had it in more than a decade.<\/p>\n That\u2019s on Garrity\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n \u201cI just feel pressure to go out every day and do the best job that I can do,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m still the state treasurer, so I\u2019m basically working 24\/7.\u201d<\/p>\n Most polls of the race so far have Shapiro leading Garrity by double-digit margins \u2014 something Garrity acknowledges. All the driving she is doing across Pennsylvania\u2019s rural areas, all the hands shaken and picnics and dinners attended, may not be enough.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course I\u2019m an underdog,\u201d she told Spotlight PA. \u201cThat\u2019s OK, I\u2019m used to being the underdog.\u201d<\/p>\n She remains well-liked in Pennsylvania GOP circles. Gerow noted in his conversation with Spotlight PA that even several years ago, it was widely assumed that Garrity would move up politically.<\/p>\n \u201cShe clearly had ambitions beyond being the state treasurer, and I wasn\u2019t sure exactly what those were. There was some thought that she should run for Congress instead of running for governor, but she chose to run for governor, and here we go.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if governor doesn\u2019t work out, Gerow said, he bets Garrity will stick around. She\u2019ll still have a Treasury term to finish out, he noted. And after that, who knows?<\/p>\n \u201cTwo years is a lifetime in politics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n BEFORE YOU GO\u2026 If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you<\/a> who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stacy Garrity speaks during an April, 2026 event on unclaimed property at Treasury\u2019s vault. Commonwealth Media Services Spotlight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-265800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265800","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=265800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Garrity](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/01n7-sn8z-s9da-7kd1.jpeg\" "\\"01n7-sn8z-s9da-7kd1.jpeg\\"")
Garrity at a going-away ceremony for one of her three deployments. Courtesy of Stacy Garrity\u2019s campaign <\/p>\n![\"Garrity](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/01n7-snhc-v6e6-n34f.jpeg\" "\\"01n7-snhc-v6e6-n34f.jpeg\\"")
Garrity giving a tour of Treasury\u2019s vault during her first term, in March, 2023. Commonwealth Media Services <\/p>\n The House floor in the Pa. Capitol. The chamber is controlled by Democrats for the first session in more than a decade. Amanda Berg \/ For Spotlight PA <\/p>\n