Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro launches his reelection bid with bigger plans in mind

(CNN) — For Josh Shapiro, it’s all about being able to win in Pennsylvania.

That starts Thursday as Shapiro launches his campaign for a second term as governor with rallies in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. But as he runs against a Republican opponent expected to be stronger than the one he faced four years ago, Shapiro will be looking to burnish his record in a state that has become the keystone for Democrats’ presidential hopes — and possibly his own.

Shapiro isn’t just looking to win a second term or trying to beat his 2022 record for the most votes anyone has ever won in Pennsylvania.

He wants to run up the score to help flip as many as four US House districts in Pennsylvania. Boosting Democrats by dominating in a perennial swing state would be an accomplishment Shapiro could cite next year during presidential primary season.

Surrounded in Pittsburgh by a crowd that had been handed signs that read “A Governor Who’s Got Your Back,” Shapiro said he was there to push back on the idea that the American dream is for the history books — and what he calls the “chaos and toxicity” of Washington.

“I have felt the weight of your worries, about losing your freedom at the hands of politicians who want to control what you read and how you get your health care and deny you your vote. The worry about being unable to feed your kids because that contract we relied on for generations was just ripped away,” Shapiro said. “I will not let anyone mess with a Pennsylvanian, and I will always have your backs.”

He said he’s running for a second term not just to continue the record he touted from his first term so far, but also to create more job growth and establish a $15-per-hour minimum wage, even with a divided legislature.

He nodded to the broader political stakes, referring to Pennsylvania as “the biggest swing state of all that decides it all,” and the House races in the state which could determine the overall majority, but also invoked the even bigger stakes of the spirit of America’s 250th anniversary being celebrated all over the state in 2026.

“From here in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of our democracy, we will send a message that division does not define us, that progress is still possible,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro kicked off his 2026 campaign alongside Austin Davis, who is running again to be the state’s lieutenant governor, in what the Democratic governor says in a launch video is about another round of what he has long called his “getting sh*t done” agenda.

That video starts with footage from the I-95 overpass collapse in 2023, which was expected to take years to repair and snarl traffic around Philadelphia. Instead, the road was reopened in less than two weeks following an emergency declaration Shapiro signed and some improvisation that included bringing in high-powered jet engines normally used to dry NASCAR tracks.

“Even with a divided state legislature — together — we’ve gotten a whole lot done on issues that have been stuck for decades,” Shapiro says to the camera. “But there’s always more to do — more people to help, more Pennsylvanians to protect, more bridges to build.”

He also touts a record that includes removing the college degree requirement for many state government jobs, instituting universal free breakfasts in public schools and funding thousands more law enforcement officers across the state. He also talks about protecting abortion rights, cutting taxes and pushing back on attacks against elections.

Shapiro is looking to project an air of dominance: Earlier this week, he announced that he raised $30 million over 2025 for the anticipated campaign, with $10 million of that coming just in the fourth quarter. He hit 60% job approval in the state, according to an October poll by Quinnipiac University, and is one of the nation’s most popular governors.

Shapiro has won three big statewide victories, twice for attorney general plus his 2022 win to become governor. But this year he is expected to face state treasurer Stacy Garrity, a Republican with two statewide wins of her own.

An Army veteran who has cast her work in the role as fighting for consumers by saving and returning them money from the state, Garrity has run so far as going up against a politician who hasn’t received enough real scrutiny, like in an ad made out like a thriller mystery trailer that her campaign released at the end of last month which ended with the tagline, “It’s amazing what you can learn … when you hide in the shadows.”

From the start, Garrity has been attacking Shapiro for, as her launch video put it, “spending his time running for president and fundraising in California and other liberal states, raising money from far-left mega-donors like (Mike) Bloomberg and (George) Soros,” charging that the state has suffered in education standing and high prices in the meantime.

Shapiro famously didn’t get the big national political promotion he interviewed for after Kamala Harris passed on picking him as her running mate in 2024, in what became another chapter in a long-icy relationship between the two. But he remains a key national figure, a popular swing-state governor and longtime favorite of former President Barack Obama whose cadence sometimes makes him sound like the 44th president.

He has also faced down personal trauma. An attacker set fire to the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg while Shapiro and his family were sleeping there hours after concluding a Passover seder.

A major factor in the governor’s race will be President Donald Trump’s standing in a state that went for the Republican in two of his three presidential runs, in 2016 and 2024, and which has been a running focus of his, including when he made his first stop of the midterm campaigning there at a rally in December. Garrity presented herself as a strong ally of the president in her launch video, including a photo of them in his favored pose of flashing thumbs-ups.

Shapiro won both his terms as attorney general on the same ballots in 2016 and 2020 when the state first went narrowly for Trump and then a little less narrowly for Joe Biden. Shapiro has been highly critical of the president—including in calling him out for not doing enough to condemn political violence.

Thursday’s announcement will kick off a busy month for Shapiro. His memoir, “Where We Keep the Light,” is out on January 27, which will include a national book tour.

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