(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania Republicans gathered in support of State Treasurer Stacy Garrity’s gubernatorial campaign on Monday night, urging attendees to vote red up and down the ballot in the 2026 midterm election.
“I promise you, I will leave it all on the field and I hope that you will as well,” Garrity said at the Newtown Sports & Event Center. “And together, together, all of us, all of us in this room, we are going to restore opportunity, affordability, and promise to this Commonwealth that we all love.”
Speaking for just over 10 minutes, Garrity’s closing message to voters touched on similar themes throughout her campaign to unseat incumbent Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.
“What does his administration believe in,” Garrity said to the crowd. “More government, more spending, more regulations, more mandates.”
“So, he and I have a very different mission,” she added.
If elected governor, Garrity said her administration would unleash natural gas to create jobs and drive up revenue for the state, cut electricity bills by reducing taxes, fight for a constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes for seniors on fixed incomes, opt-into a federal school choice program, and sign an executive order barring biological males from playing in girls sports.
“We have natural resources that are the envy of the world, world-class universities, farmland that feeds the world, small cities, small towns worth preserving, cities worth rebuilding, people that know what a hard day’s work is, and that Pennsylvania is worth fighting for,” Garrity said.
When Garrity broke the record, previously held by Shapiro, for most votes received in a Pennsylvania election in 2024, Republicans up and down the ballot in the Keystone State won.
One of those Republicans elected to statewide office in 2024 was Dave McCormick, who narrowly defeated three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
McCormick, speaking in support of Garrity’s campaign on Monday night at the rally, described her as an “incredible force for strong government, strong conservative policies, and the contrast with her opponent could not be more clear.”
“The choice cannot be more clear. Like ground zero for that fight is Pennsylvania, and ground zero for the fight within Pennsylvania is right here in Bucks County and right here in that gubernatorial race,” he said. “What you all do is going to matter so much for the future of Pennsylvania and the future of America, and we have somebody running for governor that is truly a hero.”
Dave Sunday and Tim DeFoor, elected and reelected Pennsylvania’s Attorney General and Auditor General in 2024, were also on hand and spoke in support of Garrity’s campaign on Monday evening in the Philadelphia suburbs.
While Republicans hit it out of the park in 2024 in Pennsylvania with President Donald Trump winning the state’s 19 electoral votes, winning all three statewide row offices, flipping a U.S. Senate seat from blue-to-red, and two U.S. House seats, a much more challenging environment awaits them in the 2026 midterm election.
Polling shows Trump’s approval rating underwater in Pennsylvania as voters are pinning the blame on Republicans for affordability issues.
In the race for governor, polling throughout the cycle has consistently shown Shapiro being viewed as the heavy favorite to win a second term, leading in nearly every poll over the past few months by double digits.
The Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections, a trio of national ratings outlets, describe the race as “Solid Democratic.”
However, several Republican leaders in Pennsylvanians urged attendees to ignore the polls and expressed confidence in their candidates.
“We’re going to win tomorrow. We are going to win. Don’t believe the polls,” Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Greg Rothman said. “The polls are meant to suppress the vote. They’re meant to depress you….and we know they’re not true.”
“We know the only poll that matters is tomorrow, and you’re going to be there,” he said.
In making his case, Rothman noted that Sunday and other Republicans were trailing in polls before winning their races in 2024. He also argued Republicans cutting into Democratic Party’s advantage with mail-in voting will make a difference in the 2026 midterm election.
“All these races are winnable. All of them are doable,” McCormick said. “Listen, you know the only poll that I had that ever said I was winning, there was none. It was election day when I won, right? So don’t believe the polls.”
In addition to the race for governor, voters in Pennsylvania will decide which party is in control of the state’s General Assembly.
Some of the races that will likely determine the majority party are in Bucks County.
GOP State Sen. Frank Farry, facing a challenge from Democrat Eileen Hartnett Albillar, spoke out against the Democratic efforts to win a trifecta during Garrity’s rally on Monday evening.
Shapiro has made winning a trifecta a key part of his bid for a second term, saying that if he wins and Democrats win a majority in the state House and Senate for the first time in over three decades, he would raise the state’s minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, sign bills to constitutionalize abortion rights, give victims of sexual abuse the opportunity to confront their abusers in court, invest in mass transit across the state, and build more housing.
Farry made the case that a Republican trifecta would better serve Pennsylvanians during his speech.
If Garrity defeats Shapiro, Republicans would need to flip only a few state House seats and maintain their majority to achieve their first trifecta since Gov. Tom Corbett was elected in 2010.
Corbett’s governing partner during his term was Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, a Bucks County native.
Cawley, in an interview with The Center Square on Monday evening, talked about what governing with a trifecta entails.
“There are certainly some challenges, but I subscribe to the same belief that Stacy Garrity does: that there’s no reason whatsoever not to be talking about a Republican trifecta,” Cawley said.
Cawley, while advocating for Garrity and Republicans up and down the ballot, also noted that elected officials need to work with one another.
“I don’t think necessarily we should be that concerned about a trifecta one way or another, because I believe that representative democracy, our republic, requires the ability to reach across the aisle and to build consensus,” Cawley told The Center Square. “So, even if one party holds one or two pieces of the puzzle, that shouldn’t just that shouldn’t prevent us as Pennsylvanians from figuring out ways to make sure that we continue to be committed to limited government-free enterprise, lower taxes, the building blocks that have built the American dream throughout history, and will rebuild Pennsylvania’s economy.”
Bucks County has a history of ticket splitting and often plays a significant role in statewide races.
In 2024, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Bucks County since 1988.
In 2024, Garrity won Bucks County by 6 points over Democratic challenger Erin McClelland. However, in all three of Shapiro’s successful bids for statewide office, he’s carried Bucks County and even won the key suburban county by 20 points during his successful campaign for governor in 2022.
Shapiro, a Montgomery County native, also spent the final night before the election in the Philadelphia suburbs, holding a rally in Jenkintown.
This article was originally published by The Center Square and is republished under its open-access guidelines.