PHILADELPHIA—For Josh Shapiro, the pomp of his reelection reveal was a tale of two speeches, a glimpse of his balancing act as the incumbent governor of crucial swing-state Pennsylvania and emerging national Democratic leader flirting with a 2028 presidential bid.
The first half of Shapiro’s 30-minute speech from a makeshift stage inside the gymnasium of a youth basketball community center in the gritty Nicetown neighborhood just north of downtown Philly was all about Pennsylvania—a laundry list of accomplishments since assuming office three years ago and a preview of plans for his second term. Public education funding increased 30 percent, check. Violent crime decreased 12 percent, check. Seven tax cuts, $35 billion in private sector investment in the economy, swift repair of the Interstate 95 collapse—check, check, check.
“I’m also here to say that we have only just begun,” Shapiro told an energetic crowd his campaign estimated at 1,000. “We’ve got more stuff to do, we’ve got more people to help, and we got more problems to solve.” (He proposes raising the minimum hourly wage to $15, upping energy production, and enacting policies aimed at “making life more affordable.”) But it’s the second 15 minutes of the governor’s address that merits attention. Shapiro presented Pennsylvania as a bulwark against heavy-handed Washington, D.C.—remarks that embraced national leadership and signaled the contours of a 2028 presidential campaign, should he run.
Shapiro did not mention President Donald Trump by name; the two leaders have managed an amicable working relationship. Nor did “MAGA” cross his lips. And when the governor did refer specifically to “Republicans,” the comments were positive (his slogan: “a governor for all Pennsylvanians”). But reading between the lines, the implication of his comments were clear, in part because the space between the lines was wide enough to fit one of the several artificial intelligence data centers under development across the Keystone State.
“It is not possible to tell the story of our accomplishments, about the progress we’ve made, the lives we’ve touched without acknowledging the very real challenges to the founding principles of our commonwealth because of the chaos, the cruelty, and the corruption in Washington, D.C.,” Shapiro said. “Some politicians who know better are too cowardly to speak up. They abandon their principles, and in an attempt to position themselves and be better off, they leave a whole lot of others behind. And that weakness—that weakness—has a real cost.”
“The 10th Amendment of our Constitution preserves power to the states and guards against federal overreach. And so hear me on this: If anyone tries to mess with a Pennsylvanian, restrict our freedoms, take away what’s ours, they’ll have to go through me,” the governor added. “Now is not a time for any of us to retreat, now is a time for us to engage. A time to stand up to the bullies.”
The evening speech on Thursday in Philadelphia was the second campaign event of the day for Shapiro, 52, who spoke in Pittsburgh in the afternoon. The kickoff comes roughly nine months after he survived an overnight assassination attempt in the governor’s mansion while celebrating the Passover holiday with his family (Shapiro is an observant Jew).
Four years ago, Shapiro won in a rout and is favored again heading into the midterm elections, although Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity offers tougher Republican competition than his previous GOP opponent. The governor’s 2026 goals are lofty: Win reelection with coattails long enough for Democrats to win full control of the state government in Harrisburg, and claim victory in Pennsylvania’s contested congressional seats, bolstering his party’s chances of capturing a majority in the House of Representatives. But for Shapiro personally, the stakes are even higher.
Winning reelection in 2026 positions the governor to seek the Democratic nomination in 2028—if he wants to. Political observers have expected Shapiro to mount a White House bid at some point in the future ever since he was designated a finalist to serve as then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024. Notably, he hasn’t ruled out doing so and appears to have warmed to the concept, as he told The Dispatch in an interview last May, although discussing anything other than the task at hand is verboten in Shapiro world.
But that doesn’t mean that other Democrats in Pennsylvania aren’t. Talk of the Keystone State’s 48th governor entering the race to become the 48th president is a hot topic in Democratic circles throughout the commonwealth, party insiders attending Shapiro’s reelection launch in Philadelphia confirmed in interviews with The Dispatch. “I hear it all the time,” said Tia D., a community activist in Philly. “They’re excited about it.”
Todd Zimmerman, chairman of the Schuylkill County Democratic Committee, said he first heard chatter about Shapiro as a future White House hopeful as early as the 2024 Democratic convention in Chicago. “I don’t think we should have that conversation this year. But he’s definitely one of the frontrunners next year,” said Zimmerman, whose county sits west of Allentown and northeast of Hershey.
Zimmerman’s caution about overlooking the gubernatorial contest is shared by other Democratic operatives in Pennsylvania.
Trump’s job approval numbers are stuck in the low to mid 40s, and voters are dissatisfied with the economy. Democrats appear on track for a successful November. But Pennsylvania is swingy, voting for Trump in 2016, former President Joe Biden in 2020, and Trump again in 2024, leading Terry Lawson, a voter canvasser who knocks on doors for Shapiro, to resist talk about a possible 2028 bid. “That’s the way it should be,” he said. “You can’t skip over the governor’s election and talk about something else.”
But when pressed, Lawson conceded that Democrats here are, in fact, talking about it. “At the dinner table,” he said.
