Attorney General Josh Shapiro launches bid for Pa. governor

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro officially launched his bid for governor on Wednesday — mostly a formality after months of speculation that he’d seek the state’s highest office.

Shapiro, a Democrat from Montgomery County, kicked off his campaign by releasing a two-minute video Wednesday morning that included endorsements from Pittsburgh mayoral candidate Ed Gainey, former Montgomery County Director of Finance Brian Regli and sexual abuse survivor Mary McHale.

Then, later Wednesday morning, Shapiro held his first public campaign event at Pittsburgh’s North Shore Riverfront Park.

“We’re going to win this race, but it’s not just about a political victory,” Shapiro said at Riverfront Park, with the Pittsburgh skyline as a backdrop. “It’s about acting with courage, it’s about taking on the big fights, it’s about looking out for everyone.”

Shapiro is the first Democrat to formally declare his candidacy. More than a dozen Republicans have said they are seeking their party’s nomination to run for Gov. Tom Wolf’s seat. Wolf, in his second term, can’t seek a third term in office under state law.

One of those challengers, former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, said in a statement that Shapiro “has zero real-world experience and would lead Pennsylvania even further in the wrong direction than Wolf has.”

Another GOP hopeful, K&L Gates partner Jason Richey of Sewickley Heights, called it an “insult to our hard-working families that he would use our community as a backdrop to pitch his policies of over-regulation, higher taxes and government interference.”

Shapiro, a 48-year-old husband and father of four, became attorney general in 2017 after serving as a Montgomery County commissioner from 2012 to 2017 and as a state representative from 2005 to 2012. Before that, he worked on Capitol Hill for nine years.

At the North Shore event, Shapiro delivered a roughly 20-minute speech that focused on the highest-profile cases his office has handled while he’s been attorney general.

He touched on his work to help secure an agreement between Pittsburgh-based health care giants UPMC and Highmark, ensuring many Highmark patients could access UPMC doctors and specialists.

“We took on that fight, and we won – not the powerful institutions,” Shapiro said.

He pointed to his work protecting labor unions, and the criminal charges filed earlier this year against State College-based contractor Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc. related to violations of the state’s Prevailing Wage Act.

“We took on that big fight, too, and those workers got every penny back that was stolen from them,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro also cited the explosive grand jury report released by his office in August 2018 that detailed decades of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and cover-ups by a half-dozen dioceses across Pennsylvania, and said he fought to protect voting rights in the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election.

“Now it’s time to take on the next big fight. You know how hard I work, how tirelessly I work for the good people of Pennsylvania, traveling to all 67 counties, to every corner of this commonwealth,” Shapiro said. “I have shown up, I’ve listened, and I surely have learned.”

“I’ve watched him stand up to the status quo. I’ve watched him fight for the rights of residents in Pennsylvania,” Gainey said.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has also thrown his support behind Shapiro. He pointed to Shapiro’s willingness to file and join on to lawsuits against Trump administration policies, including efforts to delegitimize mail-in ballots and subpoena private voter information.