Stacy Garrity is ambitious, Trump-endorsed, experienced

Is that enough to beat Josh Shapiro?

HARRISBURG -- In Stacy Garrity's first run for statewide office, she quickly learned that nobody really expected her to win -- including her own party.

"I was a sacrificial lamb," she told the audience of a live podcast taping earlier this year. "Of course, I didn't know that, because I was a rookie."

That 2020 campaign for state treasurer, in which Garrity took on a better-known, better-funded incumbent Democrat and won, is an essential part of the pitch she's making to voters as she seeks to win a second, even more improbable upset.

As she has said in interviews throughout the campaign, compared to her opponent, she may have less cash for ads and events, she may not be as polished, but she's a hard worker.

"I just worked and went to everything," she told the podcast audience of her 2020 campaign. "I worked as hard as I could, and we squeaked it out."

But in the 2026 race for governor, Garrity isn't facing a one-term state treasurer. She's up against Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is perhaps the most prominent politician to come out of Pennsylvania since Joe Biden.

Shapiro is such a dominant force in his party that no other Democrat challenged him in either of his gubernatorial primaries; few members of his party will even say a critical word about him on the record. As of June, his cash on hand was over 34 times Garrity's. His reelection bid has garnered national attention only because it is seen as a preview of his assumed 2028 run for president. In those stories, Garrity is an afterthought.

But Garrity is adamant hers isn't a losing campaign.

"If I thought I was going to be a sacrificial lamb, believe me, I wouldn't run," she told Spotlight PA. "I don't need the title."

In her quest to unseat Shapiro, Garrity is leaning into her underdog status and a folksy narrative about her background -- often saying she is the first state row officer from a rural county in more than 40 years, and noting she still lives in Bradford County.

But a closer look at Garrity's time in the military, her career with a global corporation, and her role managing tens of billions in state dollars as treasurer reveals a different picture -- of an ambitious politician who has, in a relatively short time, managed to enmesh herself firmly in Pennsylvania's Republican establishment.

Allies and opponents, from a former Garrity staffer to Democrats familiar with her work, told Spotlight PA that Garrity has been a competent state treasurer who is genuinely committed to fiscal stewardship. Under her leadership, the office received a coveted gold rating for its 529 college and career savings program, returned more than $1 billion in unclaimed property, and has remained scandal-free.

She has also been unabashedly political over the years. Garrity is a committed conservative with beliefs rooted in her Christian faith, and closely aligns herself with President Donald Trump. "Who doesn't want to make America great again?" she asked Spotlight PA in a recent interview.

Garrity sold "Defund Planned Parenthood" T-shirts during her first campaign, and posted on Facebook in 2022 that the end of Roe v. Wade would be "a great day for the sanctity of life." She told Spotlight PA that the free market should solve environmental issues and that "of course there's climate change, but I'm not sure as to what extent." She questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election on multiple occasions, saying at one 2022 political rally that Trump defeated Biden.