(The Center Square) – As Gov. Josh Shapiro urges voters across the state to send him back to Harrisburg for another term, he also spent the final days of the 2026 campaign alongside a group of Democrats aiming to flip Congress from red to blue.
“You’ve got the power to…not just send a good and decent and honorable person to the Congress of the United States, but through Paige Cognetti, be a check on Donald Trump and end this chaos and cruelty and corruption,” Shapiro said during a rally in Luzerne County on Wednesday.
Cognetti, the Mayor of Scranton, is challenging freshman GOP U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan for Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District. The seat in northeast Pennsylvania is one of four in the Keystone State that Democrats, including Shapiro, have spent considerable time and resources aiming to flip on Tuesday.
In the final week of the 2026 campaign, the governor carved time out to appear alongside Cognetti, Bob Brooks for his bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in the 7th District, Bob Harvie’s campaign against U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the 1st District, and Janelle Stelson’s race to defeat U.S. Rep. Scott Perry in the 10th District.
Shapiro’s stump speeches in each of those districts touched on similar themes.
In each, the governor sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s administration for “chaos, cruelty, and corruption” in the federal government and specifically denounced the president’s tariff policies, the War in Iran, and cuts made to healthcare and food assistance in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Shapiro also painted the current GOP incumbents as beholden to the president.
Most of those races included personalized jabs at the GOP incumbents.
“He was enabled, of course, in all this by a bunch of lap dogs in Congress that just go along with whatever he says,” Shapiro said. “They call them the rubber stamp caucus in Congress, and sadly, you’re represented by one of the leading rubber stamps in the nation, a guy named Rob Bresnahan.”
While lambasting Bresnahan for voting in support of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Shapiro also accused the GOP congressman of being a “star play in the corruption field” for his stock trading.
During a visit to Cumberland County on Thursday to boost Stelson, a former central Pennsylvania television anchor running for Congress, Shapiro called Perry “one of the most spineless, gutless followers” that he knows. Shapiro also chided Perry for voting for Trump’s policies because “he wanted to get his cell phone back from DOJ,” a reference to the Republican congressman’s phone being seized for an investigation into his efforts to challenge certification of the 2020 election.
On Saturday, Shapiro campaigned in the Lehigh Valley and called Mackenzie “not a leader,” and an enabler of Trump’s agenda.
“That guy’s a follower,” Shapiro said. “He’s a follower, not a very good one, by the way, at that.”
Shapiro also noted that he helped recruit Brooks, a firefighters union leader, to challenge Mackenzie.
Also on Saturday, Shapiro made an appearance in Bucks County to boost Harvie, a Bucks County Commissioner.
“You have the opportunity, the choice in this race, the United States Congress, to vote for a man who is from Bucks County, who has always delivered for Bucks County, who has taught our children in Bucks County,” Shapiro said. “He’s been a strong leader standing up to the corruption here in Bucks County.”
In each appearance in those four battleground districts, Shapiro referred to the voters as having a “two-for”: being able to elect a Democrat to Congress and change the makeup of the next Speaker of the House.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. I want a check on Donald Trump,” Shapiro said. “Bob Harvie is that check on Donald Trump.”
Shapiro promoted each Democratic candidate by name in each of those four rallies. And in those rallies, he criticized every Republican incumbent by name except one: Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick is also the lone GOP incumbent he wants to unseat who has not formally backed his GOP challenger, Stacy Garrity.
Bresnahan, Mackenzie, and Perry have touted the reforms to tax policy made in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the campaign trail, arguing the legislation benefits families in their respective districts with the elimination of taxes on overtime, tips, and Social Security.
When talking about his own race in each of those four rallies, Shapiro didn’t mention Garrity by name once. Instead, he painted his race as one between himself and a candidate who he also described as a “rubber stamp” for Trump.
Throughout the campaign, Shapiro has significantly outraised and outspent Garrity. He is widely viewed as the favorite for a second term as various polls show him holding a double-digit lead. National ratings outlets like the Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections, describe the race as “Solid Democratic.”
While Shapiro enters Tuesday expected to win a second term, the outcome of those four seats is much less certain.
While Bresnahan and Mackenzie both flipped their respective seats from blue-to-red just two years ago, The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball believe both narrowly favor Cognetti and Brooks, rating both races as “leans Democratic.”
Perry, former chair of the conservative U.S. House Freedom Caucus, is serving his seventh term in Congress and is also in a race both outlets describe as “leans Democratic” for Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District.
The race, widely viewed as the biggest uphill battle for Democrats among the four, is Fitzpatrick’s bid for a sixth term representing the district in the Philadelphia suburbs. Fitzpatrick is the only Republican serving in the Keystone State who represents a district that Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024.
The Cook Political Report describes the race between Harvie and Fitzpatrick as a toss-up, while Sabato’s Crystal Ball says it’s “leans Democratic.”
The three Republicans Shapiro slammed by name have previously been critical of him.
When Perry announced his support for Garrity in February, he called Shapiro’s tenure as governor “a complete and utter failure” and accused the governor of caring about “his own political ambitions – not solving problems facing the Citizens of Pennsylvania.”
Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, has called Shapiro a “good man” and a “friend.”
In an interview with NBC10 Philadelphia, Shapiro said “I like Brian Fitzpatrick. I think he’s a good man.”
“My concern with Brian, and I have voiced this to him directly, is that the first vote a member of Congress has to cast is for a Speaker of the House,” Shapiro continued. “And I don’t think this nation can continue to afford to have Mike Johnson as the Speaker of the House and be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump.”
Fitzpatrick reportedly said he’s open to supporting New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker of the U.S. House.
Shapiro also made appearances in other districts where Democrats are aiming to unseat Republican incumbents, although those races are widely viewed to be in more Republican friendly districts.
This article was originally published by The Center Square and is republished under its open-access guidelines.