Josh Shapiro Set To Climb Next Rung On Political Ladder
On Thursday (March 25), Philadelphia Magazine reported what everybody has already known, since before Tom Wolf even got re-elected in 2018 – that Josh Shapiro will be running in the Democratic Primary for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2022.
This is the fourth political office that Shapiro is seeking.
Left, former Republican Congressman Jon Fox – Right, 31-year-old Josh Shapiro – Philadelphia Inquirer October 14, 2004
In 2004, at the age of 31, Shapiro won a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (153rd District, Abington). He defeated former Republican congressman, Jon Fox in the general election that year, by more than 9%.
Shapiro replaced Republican Ellen Bard who had received 66% of the vote in the 2002, 153rd District Race. In 2004, she resigned from her seat to run (and lose) in the Republican Primary for the U.S. Congress (13th District).
In 2011, Shapiro and Leslie Richards did what no Democrats had been able to do in Montgomery County for the previous 140 years. They won control of the Montco Board of Commissioners.
In 2016, while Donald Trump was flipping Pennsylvania by winning 2,970,733 votes (vs. Hilary Clinton’s 2,926,441), the former president had to take a back seat to Shapiro who collected votes 3,057,010 in the race for Attorney General (vs. Republican John Rafferty’s 2,891,325).
Among the 10 major party candidates running in statewide elections that year, Shapiro was the top vote-getter.
In his successful re-election effort in 2020, Shapiro again outpaced all the other candidates running in statewide races.
In fact, Shapiro now holds the record for having received the most votes of any candidate in a Pennsylvania election.
On March 11, Sabado’s Crystal Ball wrote that “it’s been a poorly kept secret that state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who was just re-elected last year, has his eye on the governorship.”
Currently, there are barely even rumors of any formidable opposition that Shapiro might face in the primary. However, the “Crystal Ball” and the Cook Political Report both rate the 2022 Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Race as a “tossup.” That’s because in 2020, while Shapiro was getting re-elected by not exactly a landslide 50.85%-46.33%), and Joe Biden was barely flipping Pennsylvania’s electors back into the Democratic column (50.01%-48.84%) – Republicans were doing some flipping of their own, electing the State Treasurer and Auditor General. This was the first time since 2000 that a Republican had been elected Treasurer, and the first time that the GOP won the office of Auditor General since 1992.