won a second term on Tuesday by handily defeating state Treasurer Stacy Garrity<\/a>, declared victory for his party during his acceptance speech, even while the Senate was still knotted up at 24-24.<\/p>\n\u201cNow, with a Democratic trifecta, we\u2019ll be able to get even more stuff done \u2014 from raising the minimum wage and lowering costs, to giving survivors their day in court, to building more housing and codifying abortion rights,\u201d Shapiro said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Lehigh University political science professor John Borick said Shapiro\u2019s 20-point win over Garrity strengthens his standing as governor and possibly sets him up for a presidential run in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth his electoral success and now the success of his party, flipping the state Senate for the first time in decades and allowing Democrats control of both the House, the Senate, and the governor’s office, happened on his watch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the 16th Senate District, which covers Bucks and Lehigh counties, Democrat Mark Pinsey declared victory over Republican incumbent Jarrett Coleman. In the Poconos\u2019 40th Senate District, Democrat Brian Wrightsen beat incumbent Republican Rosemary Brown.<\/p>\n
Democrats were able to add to their majority in the state House and hold a 108-86 advantage, with a few races still up in the air Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
The last time Democrats had control of the governor\u2019s office, the state Senate and the House was in 1993.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Matt Bradford, a Montgomery County Democrat and state House Majority Leader, called the electoral domination \u201ca national repudiation of the chaos, the cruelty and corruption coming out of Washington, D.C.,\u201d and said the trifecta would allow them to pass what he calls common-sense issues that had been blocked by Republicans in the state Senate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that whether it’s House Bill 1 or Senate Bill 1, the first order of business needs to be making sure that Pennsylvania has a minimum wage that’s commensurate with the needs of working people and provides the dignity that work should provide to any Pennsylvanian,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In addition to raising the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, Bradford said other legislative priorities include paid family leave, allowing child sex abuse survivors their day in court and properly funding mass transit, including SEPTA.<\/p>\n
He added state House Democrats have operated until this point with a 102-101 majority, requiring Democrats to work across the aisle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 102 may be a little bit larger, and our mandate may be expanded,\u201d said Bradford, \u201cbut the humility must remain. Without that humility, we will suffer the same fate in terms of policy and at the ballot box.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Democrats won control of the Pennsylvania Senate, giving them a blue trifecta in Harrisburg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2258,836,33,28,30,9116,29,12534],"class_list":["post-321603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-democrats","tag-election","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-house","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321603","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=321603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}