Governor Shapiro's friends in ‘left’ places:
Many on both sides see Shapiro as a sensible Democrat who can compete nationwide. Time will tell how that plays out.
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According to polls, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro will be reelected in November. Many on both sides see him as a sensible Democrat who can compete nationwide. Well, time will tell how that plays out. On the other hand, Governor Shapiro may have friends in "left" places on November's ballot. It turns out that his Democrat Party moved further to the left in the primaries, according to Salena Zito:
The Democrats, on the other hand, went leftward in many of their primary races, beginning with the race for Congress. Proud Democratic Socialists of America member Chris Rabb defeated a crowd of more establishment-type primary challengers, winning his election as the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania's 3rd Congressional District.
What does this mean for Governor Shapiro? Zito explains:
Shapiro earned nearly 1.1 million Democratic primary votes to Garrity's 630,000 Republican primary votes -- a solid showing for Shapiro. But in fairness to Garrity, Democrats had many more contested primary races on the board than Republicans did. More Democrats showed up to vote than Republican primary voters.
All roads to power lead through Pennsylvania. If Democrats win the majority, Pennsylvania races will have handed that to them. But they will also hand over to them members of the Squad. And it is unclear who Lee and Rabb will badger the most -- their party or the Republicans.
And that's the problem. Governor Shapiro may find himself fighting with a Democrat Party pushing bills that he may not want to sign.
My guess is that Governor Shapiro wants to run in 2028 as a man who can get things done on a bipartisan basis. Or a governor running a state that attracts businesses and keeps taxpayers from fleeing somewhere else. He wants to present that as a contrast to the governors of California or Illinois.
A state Democrat Party more to the left may make that goal a lot more difficult. Some of the Democrats ran on platforms that included calling the war in Gaza a "genocide," abolishing ICE, free Palestine and win Medicare for All. Those issues will produce a lot of intra-party fighting in Harrisburg and not turn into a lot of bipartisan legislation.
It's true that Texas and other states embraced more MAGA. What may be more consequential is that the primaries are pushing the Democrats closer to the SQUAD. And Pennsylvania is evidence of that.
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