Gov. Josh Shapiro is barrelling toward Election Day Nov. 3 with an overwhelming financial advantage over his challenger, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity.
Shapiro, a Democrat from Montgomery County, has received more than $38 million in campaign contributions since the start of 2025. Garrity, a Bradford County Republican, raised $3.2 million over the same time.
Key takeaways from Public Source’s analysis
- Shapiro collected about half of his campaign cash from out of state, compared to 7% for Garrity.
- The two largest individual contributions to Shapiro’s campaign — out of more than 45,000 of them — totaled more than Garrity raised during the entire period.
- Shapiro’s campaign started 2025 with more than $11 million, and has spent far less than it has raised since then, allowing it to enter June with $36 million on hand. Garrity had $1 million on hand at the start of June.
“It’s a huge disparity, it would be unusual in any context,” said Chris Bonneau, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. “Clearly Shapiro is a fundraising machine and is going to be in a good position to counteract any attacks that Garrity makes.”
Bonneau noted that Shapiro has already hit the airwaves with ads touting his opposition to unrestrained data center development, an issue that Garrity has tried to use to her own advantage. The reach of Garrity’s messaging has been limited, though: Ad tracking firm AdImpact reported Aug. 28 that her campaign had purchased or reserved just $265,000 in airtime, compared to $15 million for Shapiro.
“That kind of money allowed [Shapiro] to do that, to be a little preemptive,” Bonneau said.
View a complete dataset of contributions to Shapiro here.
View a complete dataset of contributions to Garrity here.
The campaigns are required to file fresh disclosures by Sept. 22 and Oct. 23. Public Source will update and analyze the data following each of those disclosures.
Shapiro raised money from coast to coast
Around 60% of Shapiro’s contributions came from within the commonwealth. But because his out-of-state checks skewed larger, 51% of the governor’s dollars came from outside its borders. Garrity attracted just $238,000 from out-of-state donors, accounting for about 7% of her intake.
Michael Bloomberg of New York, Christian Larsen of San Francisco, a political committee called Democracy PAC II based in Washington and Christopher Barnett of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, gave Shapiro a combined $5 million, about 12% of the total. Twelve of the top 20 individual donations to Shapiro’s campaign came from other states.
Shapiro campaign spokesperson Sam Reposa said in a written statement that the campaign has “record-setting fundraising strength” with contributions from each state and Pennsylvania county. Reposa did not respond to questions about the amount of money received from outside Pennsylvania or the speculation that Shapiro could run for president.
“The governor has also been clear that these midterm elections will be a referendum on the chaos, cruelty and corruption coming from Washington, D.C. … ,” she said.
The Garrity campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s not uncommon for the Pennsylvania governorship to attract national attention, Bonneau said. And Shapiro’s status as a rumored presidential candidate in 2028 may increase the attention from Democratic donors elsewhere.
“I don’t know how you would say it doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Bonneau said. “If you think Shapiro is a strong candidate for president, he better win this election, and the bigger the margin, the better it is for him if he decides to run. People like being associated with a winner.”
Checks of all sizes
Shapiro’s average donation was $848, driven up by a slew of particularly large individual donations. His campaign received $100,000 or more from 82 different people or organizations, headlined by Bloomberg’s $2.5 million donation.
LinkedIn founder and liberal donor Reid Hoffman was among the 82, along with Phillies owner John Middleton, Duolingo leader Luis Von Ahn, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman, Entercom founder Joseph Field and former Gov. Tom Wolf. Executives at technology companies, investment and banking firms, philanthropic organizations filled out the list, along with a handful of labor unions.
Garrity’s average contribution was just over half Shapiro’s at $457. Her campaign received one six-figure check, from a Philadelphia-based real estate firm called University City Housing. Among the other largest contributors were a handful of political committees, Asher’s Chocolate executive Robert Asher, two manufacturing and construction executives and the founder of a company that bills itself as “The leading developer of skill games.”
Outside money could be factor
The two candidates’ campaigns are not the only groups that can spend money to influence the governor’s race. It’s common in races with national attention for outside groups, or political action committees, to spend large sums of money on behalf of one candidate or another.
That’s one way Garrity could eat into Shapiro’s financial edge, Bonneau said, but there’s no sign yet that it’s happening or likely to happen.
“I think that’s an indication of how her campaign is perceived by Republicans and conservative groups outside Pennsylvania,” Bonneau said. “They don’t see this for her as a winnable race.”
This story was fact-checked by Lajja Mistry.
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
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