Pennsylvania’s Republican leaders are all-in on state Treasurer Stacy Garrity as their 2026 gubernatorial candidate, banking on an early endorsement to unify the party behind toppling Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.
How – if at all – the party might try to shape Garrity’s political posture over the next 14 months remains an open question.
The Republican Party of Pennsylvania, with 326 state committee members voting, moved overwhelmingly to endorse Garrity at its fall meeting in State College on Saturday. That puts the weight of the party and its fundraising apparatus behind her well ahead of the May 2026 primary election, when registered Republican voters will select the party’s candidate for governor.
It’s unclear if any big names other than Garrity’s will appear on that ballot. The only other heavy-hitter who has expressed interest is state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Adams County), who has warned that an early endorsement of Garrity risks coming across as a top-down edict that will alienate the party’s voter base.
Mastriano, who was the party’s nominee in 2022 and lost to Shapiro, has not officially said if he is running.
By making an early endorsement, the state GOP committee is hoping to replicate 2024, when an early endorsement of Dave McCormick for U.S. Senate allowed the party to avoid a messy primary battle and propelled McCormick to victory over incumbent Democrat Bob Casey.
“Any time you can get an early endorsement, it’s fantastic, and I am so honored to have the endorsement and the confidence of the leaders here of our grassroots party,” Garrity said following Saturday’s meeting.
The endorsement vote was almost pro-forma. Even before the vote was taken, speakers referenced “winning with Stacy Garrity” in 2026, often citing the fact that her 2024 re-election saw her get the most raw votes of any candidate in Pennsylvania history.
The committee first took a vote on whether or not to make any endorsement at this time, which resulted in a small chorus of “no” and a notably louder one of “yes.” When a subsequent vote was taken to name Garrity as that endorsee, the “no” voices sounded as if they were in the single digits.
“I’m personally somebody who’s normally against endorsements, but this is a situation where not to endorse her would be an abdication of our responsibility to the party,” committee member Peter Quaglia said after the endorsement vote. “She is the only one who can beat Josh Shapiro, in our estimation.”
Shapiro is widely seen as a formidable candidate, given his fundraising prowess and his popularity even among conservative-leaning voters.
In her acceptance speech, Garrity outlined two clear lines of attack against Shapiro: One is that he’s a creature of politics who is focused exclusively on higher office, given his anticipated 2028 presidential run.
“I’m not running for governor as a stepping stone to something bigger,” Garrity said, quipping that “there is no more dangerous place in Harrisburg than standing between Josh Shapiro and a camera.”
The other is that Shapiro has tried too hard to be a one-size-fits-all candidate, with Garrity attacking Shapiro’s attempts to play both sides of the fence on issues like capping fossil fuel emissions and using public dollars for private school vouchers.
But that door also swings both ways. Garrity – once a hardline opponent of abortion – has scrubbed some of her previous positions as she seeks to soften her stance, with the GOP trying to avoid a repeat of 2022, when Democrats out-performed expectations on the heels of Trump-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices overturning the Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey abortion protections.
Republicans will also have to reckon with Garrity’s echoing of President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims about election fraud in a 2026 midterm cycle that will serve in part as a referendum on Trump, Democrats are almost certain to try to make the race about Garrity having spoken favorably on overturning the election results and asserting Trump actually won in 2020.
Asked if she thought she needed to alter or moderate any of her stances to run for governor, Garrity replied, “No, no – I’m completely authentic.”
“I’ll leave that up to Stacy,” Val Biancaniello, a high-profile GOP committee member, said when asked the same question.
“I don’t think Stacy needs to change anything but to be who she’s been, tell you what she believes, and when Stacy says something, you know she means it,” Guy Ciarrochi, another prominent committee member, said when asked how Garrity’s choice of positions on things like elections and abortion would affect the race.
“That’s what I think is going to be one of the most important contrasts in this race, authenticity versus polish,” Ciarrochi said. “One person speaks from the heart; the other speaks from focus groups.”