Stacy Garrity hopes ‘the calvary will be coming’ with less than a month until Pennsylvania’s governor election

Stacy Garrity really didn’t want to be running for governor right now.

If it were up to her, she’d still be in the U.S. Army Reserves, from which she was forced to end her tenure in 2016 as a colonel after serving a maximum 30 years and three tours in the Middle East. There, she earned the nickname “Angel of the Desert” for overseeing a prison with zero abuse allegations or escape attempts.

“Serving truly was and is the honor of my lifetime,” Garrity said in an interview in Philadelphia last week.

After the Army, Garrity pivoted, working as a business executive and lobbyist before rising through the ranks in Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, twice winning statewide election to treasurer in record numbers, and being nominated in April as the party’s choice for governor. She’s now entrenched in a different kind of consequential battle, where her performance at the top of the ticket could help decide control of the U.S. House and the state legislature.

But the governor’s race is a steep hill to climb: Garrity is challenging one of the most influential figures in modern Pennsylvania politics, Gov. Josh Shapiro, in a midterm year where Republicans already face strong national headwinds. A poll conducted last month by The Inquirer, Siena University, and New York Times found that a quarter of Pennsylvania’s likely Republican voters didn’t know who she is, while Shapiro has maintained a double-digit lead. And though Garrity was endorsed by President Donald Trump and embraced by the state party unprecedentedly early in the election cycle, she’s been largely financially abandoned by state and national Republicans as they spend their resources elsewhere.

Garrity said she still has hope they’ll come through.

“We still have some time,” Garrity said last week during an interview in The Inquirer’s newsroom. “We fully expect that the calvary will be coming.”

» READ MORE: 1 in 4 Pa. GOP voters doesn’t know who Stacy Garrity is as Josh Shapiro widens lead in governor’s race

Garrity, who would be Pennsylvania’s first female governor if elected, is running to lead one of the nation’s most coveted swing states, where registered Democrats narrowly outnumber Republicans and unaffiliated voters are the fastest growing classification.

And she’s bringing with her some creative solutions to address perennial problems facing Pennsylvanians like property and gas taxes — as well as a desire to allow natural gas producers to drill on public lands and a personal opposition to abortion that she says she wouldn’t enforce if elected. She is loyal to Trump and proud to defend his war with Iran, but said she “hopes that it wraps up quickly.” She has also distanced herself from a handful of his stances, including that she would have taken “a more targeted approach” to his tariffs, and called for a pause on data center development and a ban on farmland construction.

That hasn’t stopped Shapiro’s campaign from calling her “100% MAGA” in television ads, appearing on TV or digital screens nearly 74 million times in the Philadelphia area since Sept. 29.

“The governor is helping me increase [name recognition] by running over $2 million a week in negative ads,” she said wryly.

» READ MORE: Gov. Josh Shapiro spent more than $2.4 million on ads this week. His GOP opponent, Stacy Garrity, spent $672.

The two are scheduled to face off in a televised debate on Wednesday evening.

The Northeastern Pennsylvania native said she’s running for governor because she sees Shapiro, widely expected to be a 2028 Democratic presidential contender, as focused on a White House run rather than what’s good for Pennsylvanians. She believes he lacked transparency around multiple controversies during his administration, discouraged economic development by backing green energy, and recklessly spent more money than the state brings in — criticisms Shapiro disputes. She also frequently points to Pennsylvania’s sorry rankings by the U.S. News and World Report, including its overall ranking as No. 47 out of 50 states for its economy and No. 35 for education.

“We have world-class industries, great universities. Where we’re situated geographically, we should be the hub of global commerce. Our natural resources are the envy of the world,” Garrity said. “So there is no reason we should be trailing in all these metrics. We should be leading. But the thing is, leadership matters.”

At her campaign launch in Bucks County in August 2025, Garrity stood behind a podium, unveiling her new campaign motto: “Help is on the way.”

But with just weeks left until Election Day on Nov. 3, it appears she’s still waiting.

Republicans endorsed Garrity last fall, an unprecedented move to clear the field and build enthusiasm for the top of the midterm election ticket. But with a lot on the line for her party and facing a popular incumbent, she has struggled to gain name recognition and fundraise. This month, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated the swing-state race “Solid Democrat.” According to the most recent campaign finance filings, Garrity has raised nearly $3 million while Shapiro brought in $60 million.

» READ MORE: Josh Shapiro and Stacy Garrity will debate for Pennsylvania governor

Garrity, in part, blames her meager cash balance on Shapiro’s reputation as a calculated and sometimes spiteful politician. She said she’s been told by industry leaders — whom she declined to name — who usually support GOP candidates that they can’t support her financially because they fear retribution from Shapiro.

While Shapiro has campaigned alongside each of the Democratic challengers in four battleground congressional districts, the GOP incumbents have not appeared with Garrity in advertisements. And in several state legislative races, GOP candidates in swing districts are boasting their work with Shapiro in Harrisburg.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s campaign emphasized Garrity’s support for Trump’s agenda.

“Stacy Garrity has made clear that she would be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s agenda of cruelty, chaos, and corruption,” said spokesperson Sam Reposa. “Garrity is completely wrong for Pennsylvania — and she cannot be trusted to stand up for our commonwealth.”

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Garrity said she doesn’t expect help from the Republican Governors Association or political action committees backed by Pennsylvania’s richest person Jeffrey Yass — a few examples of the big-dollar donors Republicans usually rely on to help them bankroll their advertising, like the $30 million Shapiro has already spent on TV and digital ads in the race so far. While Shapiro spent nearly $3 million on ads last week, Garrity spent only $2,146, according to media tracker AdImpact.

The RGA and the Commonwealth Leaders Fund, the GOP PAC historically backed by Yass, did not respond to requests for comment.

But Garrity said she’s still hopeful Trump, who endorsed her in January, will visit the state to campaign on her behalf, although she added “we don’t know what his schedule is” and “we don’t have any dates.” When the president visited Pennsylvania in June to tout manufacturing jobs, he didn’t mention Garrity by name, instead musing about who else in the GOP could have run for the state’s top job. He later praised her in a video posted on social media, saying she would do a “fantastic job” as governor.

Pennsylvania Republicans are motivated to vote for Garrity come November, insisted Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland), the top Republican in the state Senate.

“Republicans are definitely happy to have a candidate that they can trust if she becomes governor. They’re going to go out and they’re going to vote for her,” Ward added. “She’s a down-to-earth person and she will do what she says.”

The Pennsylvania Republican Party declined to comment.

Garrity is familiar with being the underdog.

The 62-year-old veteran made her first foray into statewide Pennsylvania politics in 2020, when she campaigned for treasurer. She was challenging a well-funded Democratic incumbent Joe Torsella. She was outraised 13-to-1, and entirely underestimated.

But as Garrity tells it, she just put her head down and outworked him.

And she shocked many when she won, as some Pennsylvania voters split their tickets between former President Joe Biden and GOP state row offices. (Shapiro, then running for reelection as attorney general and the only Democratic incumbent to win statewide that year, held on by 300,000 votes, or 5 percentage points.)

Shapiro has often attacked Garrity for questioning Biden’s 2020 victory, referring to her comments at a 2022 Trump rally in Western Pennsylvania, where she told the crowd that “we know that he won.” Earlier this year, she walked back those comments, saying she had gotten caught up in the moment and was “painfully aware” Biden was the president. She reaffirmed that in an interview last week, formally recognizing that Biden was elected.

» READ MORE: Will Donald Trump and national Republicans help Stacy Garrity’s campaign from falling flat against Josh Shapiro?

Garrity’s time as treasurer has been largely apolitical, aside from her decision to invest more than $56 million in Israel Bonds in the months after Hamas attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, or her decision to withhold payments to contractors who did security work on Shapiro’s personal home following an arson on the state-owned mansion — a move which Shapiro viewed as politically motivated. She’s focused on making the office more transparent, promising to post online every hidden fee in utility bills as line items. She’s responsible for paying the state’s bills, investing its more than $180 billion portfolio, and more in the little-known row office job critical to the state’s daily function.

» READ MORE: Stacy Garrity on being impatient, Pa.’s unclaimed property problem, and the governor’s race

Unlike her opponent Shapiro — who has been in elected office for nearly two decades — Garrity isn’t a natural politician.

“She is a good person that you can trust, and who is almost your girl next door,” said Ward, a frequent critic of Shapiro on political and policy issues in Harrisburg. “She doesn’t come from a big town, she is that community-focused, small-town person that cares about people.”

Garrity “might not have the money to have her face on TV every day” like Shapiro, noting that his taxpayer-funded communications machine totaled at least 21 full-time staffers as of July 2025, and alluding to Garrity’s fundraising woes.

“She’s not one who is carrying a banner of ‘Look at me, I’m so great,’” Ward added.

In the Army Reserve, Garrity was a whistleblower during the Iraq War, and her testimony was included in a sweeping abuse investigation that unearthed human rights violations at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, SpotlightPA reported. She spoke out against alleged abuse of war prisoners at a different internment facility, Camp Bucca. She faced a personal cost for it, too, she told SpotlightPA, including alienation from her peers and even death threats. But she stuck it out, and during her next deployment, she was appointed acting commander of the camp.

Her pivot to politics, she said, came years later, during her time working at one of the largest tungsten smelter facilities in the world — a career she held throughout her time in the Army Reserve. As she tells the story, she had a meeting in Pittsburgh about the National Defense Authorization Act when a lobbyist approached her, mentioning the rare earth elements that the Department of Defense was prohibited from buying from American adversaries, like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

Tungsten wasn’t on the list. She helped to change that and shortly after, lobbied a “don’t buy from the bad guys” tungsten campaign in Washington. And it worked. To date, the Department of Defense is still prohibited from buying tungsten for its munitions from American adversaries.

Like many around the state, Garrity said her family in rural Bradford County is feeling the pinch of Pennsylvania’s economy.

She has a soft spot for seniors on fixed incomes like her aunt, for whom she pays her utility bills and helps her apply for property tax rebates each year.

» READ MORE: Affordability is on voters’ minds in Pa. swing districts as the cost of gas and groceries skyrockets

If elected, Garrity wants to eliminate property taxes for seniors on fixed incomes, first responders, and veterans to be supported by savings found in wasteful spending in Pennsylvania’s Medicaid programs. She also wants lawmakers to amend the state constitution to cap how much school property taxes can be raised without voter approval.

She said she’d follow through on a promise Shapiro made on the campaign trail in 2022 to give all Pennsylvania drivers a $250 gas rebate during the summer. She wants to triple the program to $750 — for each month of the summer — to give every Pennsylvania driver over the age of 18 a check to cut their monthly gas bills by a third during the pricey summer months.

Day One in a Garrity administration would begin with support for a school voucher program targeted toward children in Pennsylvania’s lowest-performing schools — a plan Shapiro helped design with Senate Republicans during his first budget negotiations that he later line-item vetoed, a move that remains a sore spot among Republicans in Pennsylvania’s split legislature.

» READ MORE: Key Pennsylvania races to watch in the midterm elections this November

On housing, Garrity wants to support first-time homeowners by buying down the interest rates, as they hit record highs in the Philadelphia area.

She opposes legalization of recreational marijuana — a move Shapiro has suggested to generate revenue for the state — with concerns for its impact on mental health, domestic violence, and young adult development.

She doesn’t believe the minimum wage should be raised, either — a top priority for Harrisburg Democrats if they win control of the governor’s mansion and both legislative chambers. Pennsylvanians at most low-skill jobs are already earning hourly wages much higher than $7.25, Garrity contended. In 2025, there were 511,000 Pennsylvanians who earned between $7.25 and $15 an hour, and an additional 43,000 who earned $7.25 or less — all of whom would benefit under the Democrats’ minimum wage increase proposal, according to the state Department of Labor and Industry.

“When you have a humming economy, you know the wages are going up, up up up. It’s largely been taken care of,” she said. “If you can make $15 at McDonald’s, you’re not doing so bad.”

Garrity is married to Daniel Gizzi, a ceramics project analyst, and the two do not have any children. She completed several unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization, she said, making reproductive health issues very personal to her.

“I would do anything that I could to support women and moms and make it easier to have children, if that’s what they want,” she said.

However, she maintains she is anti-abortion with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother — but that her personal position doesn’t matter, because abortion in Pennsylvania has for decades been permitted up to 24 weeks of gestation.

She also wants to work with the Trump administration, rather than filing frequent lawsuits, like Shapiro has done. That would include sharing the state’s voter rolls with the Trump administration — a move Shapiro’s Republican secretary of state has rejected on multiple occasions.

Examining the state’s voter rolls harks back to Garrity’s pledge to be the “most transparent governor” in the state’s history, she said. If there’s nothing to hide, there should be no problem with sharing.

The former soldier looks much more like a state treasurer these days, in a matching beige skirt suit, a bright smile, and signature large-barrel curls of strawberry blond draping past her bangs onto her shoulders. She uses phrases like “Oh gosh!” and “My goodness!” when she gets excited about some of her policy ideas.

She doesn’t have any time for leisure these days between campaigning for governor and managing public funds, she said. “Oh I have no time for personal entertainment,” she added with a laugh.

She spends most days in the car on Microsoft Teams meetings, driving around the state for campaign or treasury events. She’s gotten back into running in the early mornings as a moment of solace for herself.

Unlike Shapiro, a son of Montgomery County and diehard Philadelphia sports fan, Garrity says she holds no strong sports team allegiances. She roots for all Pennsylvania’s teams: the Eagles and the Steelers, the Flyers and the Penguins, the Phillies and the Pirates.

“I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I also like the Buffalo Bills,” she said.

The New York team, whose games are often broadcast in the media markets near Garrity’s hometown, has fallen short in the playoffs in recent years, struggling to carry regular season success to a championship.

Garrity added that she still had fun celebrating the Eagles’ recent Super Bowl win — a feat the Bills have never achieved.