{"id":302916,"date":"2026-10-09T07:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T07:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/302916\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T07:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T07:02:11","slug":"what-did-shapiro-garrity-debate-reveal-about-pennsylvanias-gubernatorial-race-analyst-weighs-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/302916\/","title":{"rendered":"What did Shapiro-Garrity debate reveal about Pennsylvania&#8217;s gubernatorial race? Analyst weighs in"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and state Treasurer Stacy Garrity faced off Wednesday night in their first and possibly only debate before Election Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With 10 questions on the table, one topic at least stands out in the minds of voters: the rapid development of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/pennsylvania-governors-race-data-centers\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">data centers<\/a>. But KDKA political analyst Jon Delano said Shapiro and Garrity have roughly the same views. Both supported data centers years ago but now oppose them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If a local community does not want that data center to be built in their community, it will not be built,&#8221; Shapiro said during the debate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The governor not only allowed but he encouraged all these projects to come in, and they&#8217;ve ruined some of the community,&#8221; Garrity said.<\/p>\n<p>Delano doesn&#8217;t think the debate revealed anything new from either side.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Both candidates stuck to their script,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Both candidates said exactly what we would predict they would say. Nobody laid a punch particularly on one versus the other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Because of this, he doesn&#8217;t think there was a real winner. Delano doesn&#8217;t think either lost or gained any votes, and those who tuned in will vote for the same candidate they already planned to.<\/p>\n<p>So do debates matter anymore? Delano still thinks they do.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really a test of whether or not the candidate is willing to stand under fire, not from necessarily an opponent, but from the media,&#8221; Delano said.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of this debate, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/quinnipiac-poll-pennsylvania-politics-shapiro\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a new Quinnipiac poll<\/a>\u00a0showed Shapiro with a 25-point lead over Garrity, with 59% of likely voters backing the incumbent Democrat, and a margin of error of nearly 4%. Whether that changes depends on the number of Democrats who come out to protest a Republican president and Congress, Delano said. Nonetheless, he questions the latest poll, saying Garrity is a stronger candidate than Shapiro&#8217;s previous opponent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even when he ran against Sen. Doug Mastriano four years ago, and it was a very lopsided race, the governor won by 15 points, not 25 points,&#8221; Delano said.<\/p>\n<p>As for whether they&#8217;ll debate again, Shapiro&#8217;s campaign hasn&#8217;t said no, but it hasn&#8217;t accepted other offers either.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and state Treasurer Stacy Garrity faced off Wednesday night in their first and possibly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[836,33,28,7529,30,29],"class_list":["post-302916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-election","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-elections","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302916","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=302916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}