Gov. Josh Shapiro faces challenge from Stacy Garrity in Pennsylvania's governor race
It's Election Day in Pennsylvania and voters will be choosing whether to reelect Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to a second term or to elect Republican challenger Stacy Garrity as the state's 49th governor.
Josh Shapiro and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, are seeking a second term. Stacy Garrity, the state's treasurer, and her running mate, Jason Richey, are looking to flip the governor's office into GOP control.
At a rally in Pittsburgh late last month, Shapiro used the setting of a union hall to highlight his labor support, and spoke about issues like the ongoing war in Iran, ICE and reproductive freedom.
"When I sit behind that desk, I fight for you every single day," Shapiro said on Oct. 24. "When I sit behind that desk, I stand up to the bullies who try and undermine our interest in Pennsylvania, and I stand up to this president with his lawlessness, with his corruption, with his efforts to undermine our freedoms here in Pennsylvania."
Garrity hammered Shapiro late last month on the state's decision about skill games, allowing the deadline to come and go without a resolution that would've kept games in businesses that held them for years.
"Because the issue wasn't addressed by Oct. 13, our American Legions, our VFWs, our fire halls and so many small businesses like gas stations, convenience stores, even some local pharmacies, they had to pull these machines out," Garrity told KDKA-TV.
The rapid development of data centers throughout Pennsylvania communities has also been a topic of contention among voters and political candidates ahead of Election Day. During a gubernatorial debate in early October, data centers were one of many topics discussed by the two candidates.
Once a supporter of data centers, Shapiro is now chastising developers as bullies and signed an executive order, saying he's instituting the strongest safeguards in America. His campaign is accusing Garrity of having favored unregulated development.
Meanwhile, Garrity's former support of data centers has chilled to the point of her calling for a moratorium on their development. She calls the governor their "biggest cheerleader" and is demanding he return $5 million in campaign contributions from artificial intelligence interests.
The gubernatorial race took an AI turn last month when an AI-generated ad by Garrity's campaign joined a handful of others around the country in major races. The ad used an AI-generated likeness of Shapiro and made references to a sexual harassment complaint that was made against an aide to the governor, not Shapiro himself.
When pressed on whether she knew about the process of making the ad and if she approved it, Garrity stood by the ad and the use of artificial intelligence.
"Every single thing in that ad is correct, unlike the ads that the governor has run against me, which are categorically false, and full of lies," Garrity told KDKA-TV last month. "Everything in there is true."
Both candidates have been outspoken in different ways about Pennsylvania's ongoing measles outbreak.
As CDC officials began to acknowledge measles-associated deaths in the state, Shapiro clashed with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump administration appointee with a history of raising alarms about established vaccines.
Garrity was critical of Shapiro's handling of the situation, saying he ran to a camera before he had all the facts.
"A real leader, what you do is first thing: go console these families," Garrity told KDKA-TV last month. "And then secondly, you've got to get boots on the ground. You've got to get the facts and then be fully transparent."
