Polls may show Gov. Josh Shapiro on track to win an easy re-election victory on Nov. 3, but he is taking little for granted \u2014 including the chances that President Donald Trump stays on the sidelines when votes are tallied.<\/p>\n
“I’m deeply concerned because I’ve lived through Donald Trump now doing this for years and years and years,\u201d Shapiro told WESA Saturday during a multicounty swing through Western Pennsylvania. \u201cI fully expect we’ll be back in court protecting the vote and protecting the people. … We’re also prepared should they try and deploy any federal troops into our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration in recent days has already initiated a legal effort that seems meant to preemptively challenge the outcome of a U.S. Senate race in Alaska<\/a> if the Republican candidate loses. The administration also sued the state of California<\/a> to demand the removal of some 20,000 voters the administration says are not citizens. That\u2019s on top of Trump\u2019s earlier efforts to challenge the results in his own races. and more recently to involve the post office in determining who receives a mail-in ballot.<\/p>\n But Pennsylvania government is \u201cincredibly prepared\u201d for whatever the White House might seek to do, Shapiro said.<\/p>\n \u201cI want the good people of Pennsylvania to know that their right to vote will be protected and that we will accept the results and accept the will of the people \u2026 We have been preparing for this for more than a year, and we will protect people’s access to the polling places.”<\/p>\n Shapiro was in Pittsburgh Saturday evening for a rally with supporters at the IBEW Local 5 hall on the South Side \u2014 but not before he stopped for pizza at Fiori\u2019s in Brookline. (Shapiro eats pizza plain with no toppings \u2014 an approach he said allows him to \u201cget a good sense [of a pizza\u2019s merits] because you\u2019re comparing apples to apples\u201d \u2014 and calls Fiori\u2019s is his \u201cgo-to spot.\u201d) While there, he spoke with owner Fiore Moscatiello, who he\u2019d last seen shortly after a storm in April 2025 ripped the roof off the shop, and a number of patrons.<\/p>\n \u201cTell your parents to vote!\u201d he told one young customer, while urging a college student from Ohio to support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. When a customer admired the blue jacket he was wearing \u2014 emblazoned with an outline of the state and the legend “PA 1787\u201d \u2014 Shapiro said, \u201cYou run for governor, I\u2019ll give you one.\u201d<\/p>\n Shapiro is hoping not just to win his race, but to bring along a number of Democrats across the finish line with him, particularly in the state Senate. If Democrats can reverse the GOP\u2019s 28-to-22 seat advantage there and maintain control of the state House, Shapiro says it would break a logjam on a number of priorities.<\/p>\n Chief among them, he told WESA, was a minimum-wage increase to $15 an hour (\u201cThat will be Act 1 of 2027\u201d he predicted). Other priorities: an effort \u201cto codify abortion rights in our Constitution,\u201d a move that would require votes in successive legislative sessions and the support of voters, and an effort to expand the statute of limitations to help sexual abuse victims sue their abusers.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are things that the Senate Republicans have blocked for years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But first he has to win re-election on Nov. 3, and while polling consistently shows him with a lead solidly into double digits, Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity is still making her case to beat him. And in recent days the skill games industry, which became outlawed this month when state officials failed to meet a court-ordered deadline to legalize them, has sought to boost her efforts.<\/p>\n Garrity\u2019s most recent campaign-finance report, filed late last week, showed that between mid-September and mid-October, she raised slightly less than $5.4 million, $4 million of which came from two contributors with ties to the industry. Both the Pennsylvania Amusement and Music Machine Association and Pittsburgh businessman John D. Conley, whose company Pinnacle Vending<\/a> serves venues that carry the machines, contributed $2 million each to her campaign.<\/p>\n Garrity\u2019s camp is also blaming Shapiro for the removal of the machines, arguing in billboards that \u201cShapiro took your skill games. Stacy Garrity will bring them back.\u201d<\/p>\n Garrity has endorsed a per-machine fee tax structure for the machines, which the industry itself prefers to the 52 percent tax backed by Shapiro, and equal to the tax on slot machines operated by casinos. Her campaign says that the impasse shows that Shapiro \u201cfailed yet again and now thousands of Pennsylvania jobs have been put in jeopardy,\u201d while also threatening the bottom line of \u201cVFWs, American Legions, and scores of Pennsylvania small businesses\u201d that operate the machines. <\/p>\n