HARRISBURG, Pa. — Galen Hall and Cindy Reiner were walking through the Pennsylvania Farm Show complex last week near the New Holland tractor display when a pack of state police, Future Farmers of America volunteers and camera-toting reporters caught their attention.
In the center of the pack was Gov. Josh Shapiro, talking to just about anyone and getting polite answers — even from vendors who admitted they didn’t vote for him and won’t in November when he is up for reelection. Shapiro, a Democrat, said he respected their honesty, and they said they are okay if he shows up in a place that showcases their rural lives.
Hall’s father was a Bedford County dairy farmer; Reiner married one and calls Cumberland County home. Both are registered Democrats and said their votes have varied — from Shapiro to Republican Sen. Dave McCormick to independent-minded Democrat John Fetterman.
They are mum on President Donald Trump. If Hall and Reiner did vote for him, they wouldn’t be alone. The overlap in many Pennsylvanians’ support for Trump and their governor is something Shapiro keenly understands. That’s why he never mentioned Trump’s name at the Farm Show or when he officially launched his reelection bid this month in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Why not? Shapiro argued it’s obvious they have profound differences, so why go there? “No one expects us to agree on everything,” he said, “but to me, vilifying others, attacking others, is not a way to bring people together.”
Shapiro’s social media targets Trump’s policies, not the man. The posts usually focus on freedom and how to “Get s— done,” a slogan he and his team used for his morning meetings until he slipped and told me 100 days into his first term. It’s now his catchphrase.
He and Trump have also had frank discussions. After a 38-year-old man attempted to kill Shapiro and his family last April by setting the governor’s mansion ablaze, Trump called to check on him.
It was a gesture Shapiro said he “deeply appreciated” and led to a conversation about Nippon’s planned purchase of U.S. Steel, a deal later approved by the Trump administration.
From the outside, Pennsylvania is often viewed through the lens of the heavily Democratic cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and Shapiro spends plenty of time in their respective counties. But he also spends considerable time in the state’s other 65 counties, of which 48 are rural.
And that sets Shapiro apart. He has been considered a top-tier candidate for president since he beat Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano by nearly 15 percentage points in the 2022 governor’s race. Shapiro notably narrowed the margins in largely rural counties such as Washington and Lancaster and won Luzerne and Beaver counties. National Democrats have ignored these areas in recent cycles.
That ability to attract voters in a state Democrats have to win to gain the presidency in 2028 makes him an attractive candidate. He maintains high approval ratings while governing with a slim one-person majority in the state House and Republican majority in the Senate.
Other Democratic presidential contenders such as former vice president Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey have won races handily in Democratic states that never decide the electoral college.
I’ve watched Shapiro visit the rural and predominantly Republican counties of Cambria, Westmoreland and Potter. He’ll tell the men and women at the plant he’s visiting or the energy training center he’s speaking at, “You probably didn’t vote for me.” He gets a couple of heads shaking in agreement, some laughs and then explains why he’s there.
And people value it — even those who didn’t vote for him.
Nationally, Shapiro is most often discussed as someone Harris considered for vice president in her presidential run. Just days after the Farm Show, excerpts from Shapiro’s memoir, “Where We Keep the Light,” came out that detailed how the Harris vetting team asked him if he had ever been an agent for Israel. He said he was offended by the question. Ultimately, sensing it was a bad fit, he withdrew from the process. Yet, when Harris announced in Philadelphia that she had chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Shapiro delivered a soaring speech supporting the ticket, causing many Democrats to regret he wasn’t the pick.
Shapiro is also known as the guy who had Interstate 95 fixed just 12 days after a section of the highway collapsed during an accident, the guy who was on the scene in East Palestine along Pennsylvania’s Western border after a train full of chemicals derailed, and the guy who has passionately advocated against antisemitism on college campuses.
For rural Pennsylvanians, Shapiro has three important qualities: He has a sharp understanding of their problems, he shows up, and he does not disparage them. Shapiro has visited every Pennsylvania county, most of them several times. As of the most recent count in 2020 by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, an agency of the General Assembly, nearly 3.4 million people, or 26 percent of the state’s 13 million residents, live in rural counties.
Roughly 375,000 students attended schools in rural districts, or 25 percent of the state’s more than 1.4 million public school students. Meanwhile, 64 percent of Pennsylvania’s 2,560 municipalities are rural.
Not knowing how to listen to rural voters or understand their issues was one of Harris’s shortcomings in her presidential campaign. When she tried to address those concerns in Pennsylvania, she struggled. In 2016, during Harris’s run for Senate in California against fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez, there was no need to venture to rural counties. Her votes were earned in large Democratic ones.
Engaging with people who don’t support you — on their home turf — requires something more than courage. Mental agility, perhaps, and humility. Shapiro said there is a twofold purpose in showing up, and he thinks people often see only one side.
“The side they see is me showing up to help the community out, whether it’s getting them a grant or signing a bill into law or fixing their project,” he said. “And that’s critically important. The second side that folks don’t see is what I learned from them.”
Outside of Booker, it is unclear if any of the most talked-about presidential candidates on the Democratic side have spent significant time in the rural — usually Republican — counties of their home states. Press offices for Pritzker and Newsom did not respond to my requests. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has visited 112 of the state’s 120 counties.
Shapiro’s appearance at the 110th Farm Show is a 13,000-step day navigating 24 acres of exhibits, cuisine including the iconic Dairymen’s milkshakes, cheese curds and Amish doughnuts. Then there are goats, horses, cows, a rodeo and a shearing contest, to name just a few of the activities included in the event.
The marriage between the energy industry and agriculture is everywhere in the exhibits. A large portion of Pennsylvania farmers lease their lands for natural gas development, which often gives them the ability to keep their farm or buy equipment because of royalty payments.
Shapiro likes to brag about the state being the snack food capital of the world. Several counties are referred to as the “Snack Belt,” which produces, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, 80 percent of pretzels consumed in the United States.
“We love Philadelphia. We love Pittsburgh. We love our urban and our suburban communities, but to ignore the vibrancy of rural Pennsylvania, to ignore our farming is not only disrespectful to our farmers, it doesn’t make sense economically,” said Shapiro, noting that over 600,000 Pennsylvanians work in agriculture.
Yet agriculture and rural areas face challenges. For many, broadband is abysmal, and access to health care is dwindling. Rural hospitals have been closing maternity services with a cascade of consequences.
Shapiro said the decline in access to health care in rural communities has worsened because Medicaid funds are being cut from rural hospitals. Pennsylvania will receive a $193 million award from a federal rural health fund, but that infusion is overshadowed by the U.S. government cutting its Medicaid contributions by just under $1 trillion nationwide over a decade-long period.
“We have 25 rural hospitals in Pennsylvania right now that are working on an operating deficit where more than 50 percent of the revenue they generate is from public sources, Medicare and Medicaid,” Shapiro said.
Many outside politicians misunderstand the relationship between agriculture and energy here. President Joe Biden began losing voters from almost the moment he was sworn in when he made energy production an enemy rather than a partner. It is the same tack that Newsom has taken in California, where he issued an executive order in 2021 to ban new fracking permits; that would not go over well with Pennsylvania voters.
“Energy is central to the needs of our farmers, and that’s why I’m proud that we’re an all-of-the-above energy state,” he said of coal, nuclear, natural gas, wind and solar.
As he walks around the Farm Show hall talking to people, it is easy to forget that just nine months earlier Shapiro and his family could have died in the firebombing of their residence. It was a moment Shapiro has told me prompted conversations with his wife about whether he should seek reelection. After some deliberation, they decided he should run.
On the day of his reelection announcement, Shapiro reported a historic $30 million in campaign cash on hand. He likely will face Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity after the May primary election. Garrity is a formidable campaigner who has won back-to-back races for the statewide seat.
A recurring criticism Garrity directs at Shapiro is that he is looking past this race with an eye on running for the White House. How he manages those questions and whether she challenges him to commit to serving all four years will test his political skills.
Shapiro will also need to boost low turnout in the 2022 election in big cities such as Philadelphia and smaller ones such as Allentown, Hazleton and Reading.
His other challenge is navigating a political party whose loudest voices are on the left wing and that has candidates and elected officials who are vocal against Israel.
As Democrats come here to campaign for House members either seeking reelection or challenging a sitting Republican, Shapiro’s advice is simple: “I am here to say that in Pennsylvania, we show respect to all of our communities — rural, urban, suburban — that the economic success of our country is going to depend on the success of our farmers, and that innovation is happening in rural communities.”
If he is running for president in two years, he is not saying. Someone hands him a Dairymen’s milkshake, and he is off to the Capitol.
The post Why Pennsylvania’s rural and red counties are listening to a Democrat appeared first on Washington Post.
