With Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D-Pa.) term ending this year, Pennsylvanians will either elect Democrat Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro or Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano as the state’s 48th governor.
Lieutenant Governors are also on the ballot with the gubernatorial candidate from their party.
Gubernatorial candidates:
Josh Shapiro (D)
Shapiro has served as the attorney general of Pennsylvania since 2017. As attorney general, he exposed abuse in the Catholic Church, defended reproductive rights in Pennsylvania, and fought against claims of voter fraud in Pennsylvania after the 2020 presidential election.
Shapiro's top priorities include creating jobs, cutting taxes, improving the education system, and defending access to reproductive care.
In September, Penn students started their own chapter of Students for Shapiro. The group held their first event on Sept. 9 with the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis.
Doug Mastriano (R)
Mastriano was elected to the State Senate in 2019. Prior to serving in the State Senate, he served in the U.S. Army and was a faculty instructor at the U.S. Army War College. He plans to ban all COVID-19 vaccine mandates, increase election security, ban critical race theory in Pennsylvania schools, and protect Second Amendment rights.
Mastriano has been criticized for helping organize transportation for Trump supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and for calling for an audit of 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. He was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in May 2022.
In August, Mastriano came under widespread criticism after photos surfaced of Mastriano in 2013 dressed in a Confederate uniform in a faculty portrait for the War College’s Department of Military Strategy, Plans and Operations.
Lieutenant gubernatorial candidates:
Austin Davis (D)
Davis is the current representative of Pennsylvania’s 35th District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He was endorsed by Shapiro in the Democratic primary earlier this year. His priorities include ensuring access to education, creating sustainable jobs, and making sure that the working class is protected.
If elected, Davis would make history as the first Black lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania.
Carrie Lewis DelRosso (R)
DelRosso is the current representative for District 33 in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. If elected, DelRosso wrote in a statement emailed to the DP in April 2022 that her biggest goals are to "get Pennsylvania back on track, stop losing jobs, stop losing population, stop losing faith in ourselves, secure elections, grow education, and fix healthcare."
“Pennsylvania deserves a woman who has experience in both the public and private sector who will bring dignity back to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor," DelRosso told the DP.
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