At stake in Pennsylvania governor race: Abortion, presidency

They are vying to succeed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.

• Marc Levy/The Associated Press
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  Covering Pennsylvania politics, government & scandals for @AP. The wicked flee when none pursueth. @Colorado native. As honest as a Denver man can be.

Voters electing a new governor of Pennsylvania will choose between Democrat Josh Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano, with the future of abortion rights on the line, as well as management of the 2024 presidential election in a swing state that is often decisive.

Shapiro, the state’s two-term elected attorney general, smashed Pennsylvania’s campaign finance record in a powerhouse campaign in a year in which Democrats nationally faced headwinds, including high inflation.

Mastriano, a retired Army colonel and state senator, is a relative political novice who ran a hard-right campaign and refused for much of it to talk to mainstream news organizations, scuttling prospects for a debate with an independent moderator.

Polls suggest Shapiro is leading Mastriano, who has driven off moderate voters by being a prominent ally in former President Donald Trump’s effort to stay in power — despite his election loss in 2020 — and marching to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, where he watched pro-Trump demonstrators attack police.

He struggled to raise money as he was hit with a deluge of Shapiro campaign ads but tried to counter it with an energetic campaign that relied on a passionate grassroots volunteer force and daily videos uploaded to Facebook to connect with followers.

They are vying to succeed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term and has endorsed Shapiro. The winner will likely share power with entrenched Republican majorities in the state Legislature.

Pennsylvania polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

A Shapiro victory would make him the first governor of Pennsylvania to be elected to succeed a member of his party since 1966.

Mastriano, 58, has used a hard-right platform to lock down the party’s furthest-right voters, secure Trump’s endorsement and win a crammed, nine-way primary election.

Shapiro, 49, a political force strong enough to clear the Democratic primary, came into the race as the all-time highest-vote getter in a single election in Pennsylvania, breaking the record in his 2020 reelection.

With no primary challenger to force him to the left on key issues, Shapiro took middle-of-the-road positions on policies around education funding, COVID-19 mitigation and energy.

Meanwhile, he endorsed Austin Davis, a state lawmaker, to be his running mate and, possibly, the first Black lieutenant governor in a state that has never elected a Black governor or U.S. senator.

In light of June’s Supreme Court decision on abortion rights, Shapiro vowed to protect Pennsylvania’s existing 24-week law. He also touted his office’s fight in court to protect the state’s 2020 election from Trump’s efforts to overturn it.

Mastriano has said he supports a complete ban on abortion, with no exceptions, and had been a point person in Trump’s drive to stay in power and spread his lies about a stolen election.

He dwelled on some national GOP talking points — blaming crime and inflation on Democrats — but he also spread conspiracy theories and took a hard line on cultural issues.

Those stances — as well as his actions on Jan. 6 — have prompted some GOP officials to predict he was too extreme to win a general election in Pennsylvania.

Mastriano did more than any other candidate for governor in the U.S. to subvert the 2020 presidential election, and Democrats have accused him of preparing to subvert the next one from the governor’s office with his pledges to decertify voting machines and make voters re-register.