Stacy Garrity challenges Shapiro for PA Governor: Trump endorsement, key issues, background

PENNSYLVANIA - Stacy Garrity has won statewide twice as Pennsylvania’s treasurer. Now, in her first run for governor, she is trying to pull off a much bigger upset: unseating Democratic incumbent, Gov. Josh Shapiro. 

She has President Donald Trump’s endorsement and is running alongside Jason Richey, a longtime Pittsburgh attorney and Allegheny County Republican chair. The state GOP backed both in February. 

Background and early career

The backstory:

Garrity grew up in Bradford County near the New York border and still lives in the borough of Athens. After Sayre High School, she earned a finance degree from Bloomsburg University, the first in her family to attend college, by her own account.

From there, she built a long career in the Army Reserve. She retired as a colonel after three deployments between 1991 and 2008, in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom, earning two Bronze Stars and the Legion of Merit.

At the same time, she started at Global Tungsten & Powders as a cost accountant and eventually became the company’s vice president of government affairs. She and her husband, Daniel Gizzi, who works for Corning Incorporated, do not have children.

Record as treasurer

What we know:

Garrity’s first try at elected office didn’t succeed. She lost a Republican party-committee nomination for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District in 2019. In 2020, she narrowly unseated Democratic Treasurer Joe Torsella, by less than a percentage point. Four years later, she won reelection with more votes than any other statewide candidate, breaking a record Shapiro had set.

In office, Garrity pushed for a law, enacted in 2024, that lets Treasury return unclaimed money under $500 without the owner filing a claim. She also lowered the minimum deposit and contribution amounts for the state’s 529 college savings program. She divested state holdings in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, and sold off nearly all of Treasury’s investments in Chinese-associated securities. During the 2025 budget impasse, she offered loans to counties, nonprofits, and other entities whose state payments were frozen, through a $500 million program.

Her vision for Pennsylvania

What they're saying:

School choice sits near the top of Garrity’s agenda. "I believe in school choice because parents, not bureaucrats, know the best way to educate their kids," she said during the campaign’s only debate. She has also said she would opt Pennsylvania into the federal tax-credit scholarship program created by Trump’s 2025 tax law.

On taxes, she wants to lower property taxes for older residents, help young people afford a first home, cut the state income tax, and eliminate the inheritance tax. She also takes a different approach to skill games, arguing that Shapiro’s 52% rate would hurt small businesses, veterans’ clubs, and bars, and has proposed a flat per-machine fee that she estimates would raise about $300 million a year.

Energy rounds out her economic message. She wants to expand natural gas development, and she wants data centers to supply or pay for their own power and to be kept away from residential neighborhoods. 

One area where she and Shapiro agree: neither wants taxpayer money spent on new pro-sports stadiums.

Questions about 2020

The other side:

Shapiro’s campaign has focused on Garrity’s ties to Trump and her past statements about the 2020 election. His ads label her "100% MAGA," and his campaign argues she can’t be trusted to protect abortion access.

Garrity has faced criticism for speaking at a rally that sought to cast doubt on the 2020 election results, held the day before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. As treasurer-elect, she reportedly told the rally the November election was "tarnished forever." She later said she was arguing that unelected officials had ignored election law, and she condemned the Capitol violence on social media.

When Shapiro raised the issue at the debate, Garrity pushed back, asking how he could "look yourself in the mirror at night."

State of the race

By the numbers:

Garrity trails Shapiro 59% to 34% among likely voters in the Oct. 7 Quinnipiac poll. While 22% of likely voters view her favorably, 44% say they haven’t heard enough about her to form an opinion. She wins 79% of Republicans and 23% of independents. She has raised about $5.3 million, compared with Shapiro’s roughly $55 million.

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