Josh Shapiro Plots a Course for His Political Future

CHICAGO—Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro spent four days working the room at the Democratic National Convention last week, signaling ambitions to establish himself as a national party leader and lay the foundation for a future White House bid.

Shapiro met with party activists and insiders from across the country; attended daily breakfasts hosted by delegates from key early primary and presidential battleground states; and even made a point of engaging with reporters, holding informal news conferences and participating in high-profile interviews. Since the governor emerged as a finalist to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, he has embraced the spotlight. His moves during last week’s convention exhibited the hallmarks of a politician interested in higher office.

Predictably, Shapiro swatted away the future political implications of his rather busy schedule in the Windy City. “I’m focused—if I haven’t shown this already over the last several weeks—I am focused like a laser beam, every single day, on governing the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is a job I love,” Shapiro told reporters during one of the handful of scheduled news conference “gaggles” his team included on the governor’s public convention week schedule—events hardly considered mandatory for convention VIP attendees. 

“I am grateful to the good people of Pennsylvania for giving me this opportunity,” Shapiro added. “I think I’ve made crystal-clear this is the job I want to be in and I’m going to remain in. I’m going to stay focused on that, and politically, making sure Kamala Harris and Tim Walz win this election.”

Democrats’ main focus during last week’s quadrennial gathering was rightfully to elevate Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. So, Shapiro was understandably coy about his Chicago itinerary, and his career trajectory. But convention delegates from Pennsylvania—brimming with pride—were not. 

“I think, after maybe two terms of our new president, he’ll be the next president,” delegate Angie Gialloreto, 95, said unprompted in an interview on the convention floor. Gialloreto, from Allegheny County, in western Pennsylvania, has been attending Democratic conventions since the 1970s. Was she initially disappointed that Harris passed over Shapiro and instead chose Walz to join the party’s 2024 ticket? “Well, yes.”

Shapiro is a rising Democratic star with cross-aisle appeal; he serves as chief executive of the battleground state poised to decide a razor-thin presidential election; and he happens to be both Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel. Taken together, those factors all shine a bright spotlight on Shapiro’s nearly every move. But for a governor who promotes himself as a politician who “gets s—t done,” the most immediate question about his future prospects is: Can he get a Pennsylvania victory done for Harris?

Democrats in Pennsylvania predict Shapiro will be a major asset to the vice president’s campaign but see a long career in national politics ahead for him regardless. “Josh Shapiro is that good,” said convention delegate Katherine Gilmore Richardson, a Philadelphia city councilwoman.

Shapiro addressed the Democratic convention Wednesday, the same evening Walz accepted the nomination for vice president. A youthful 51, Shapiro’s charismatic speaking style has drawn comparisons to the cadence and inflection of former President Barack Obama, with the theme of the energetic, roughly six-minute speech from the dais of the United Center arena in Chicago centering around “freedom.” It was a favorite topic of Shapiro’s, familiar to anyone who tracks his public comments, typically delivered without a teleprompter. 

“It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they are allowed to read—no it’s not. And it’s not freedom to tell women what they can do with their bodies. And here me on this: It sure as hell isn’t freedom to say, ‘You can go vote,’ but he gets to pick the winner,” Shapiro said, referring to Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump. “That’s not freedom.” The applause lines did their job. The first-term governor’s remarks brought convention delegates and guests to their feet. 

But Shapiro’s daytime activities last week—publicized by his political team—were, frankly, more interesting than his primetime address:

• Monday: Early morning remarks to convention delegates at breakfasts hosted by the Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Florida delegations; remarks to the Democratic National Committee’s Labor Council; two scheduled media availabilities. 
• Tuesday: Early morning remarks to convention delegates at breakfasts hosted by the South Carolina and California delegations; one scheduled media availability. 
• Wednesday: Early morning remarks to convention delegates at breakfasts hosted by the New Hampshire, Nevada, and New Jersey delegations; high-profile interview at the Politico-CNN Grill. 
• Thursday: Early morning remarks to convention delegates at breakfasts hosted by the Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and Wisconsin delegations.

Shapiro advisers were tightlipped about what the governor hoped to accomplish. (Requests for a one-on-one interview during the convention were not denied outright but declined on account of scheduling conflicts.)

It doesn’t take a political genius, however, to understand the subtext when an enterprising Democrat carves out time out of a limited convention schedule to visit with party activists from key early primary states (South Carolina and Nevada,) swing states (Wisconsin) and states rich in grassroots and wealthy campaign donors (California.) And it’s not just Shapiro’s maneuvering here last week that revealed a politician working deliberately to cultivate the sorts of relationships that could pay dividends outside of Pennsylvania.

Since winning the governor’s mansion in 2022, Shapiro has been heavily involved with the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), working closely with the group to increase the ranks of his party’s chief executives nationwide. 

In 2023, Shapiro helped the organization break previous fundraising records in the new leadership role of “strategic engagement chair,” a knowledgeable Democratic source said.

Throughout that year and since, Shapiro has continued to raise money for the DGA, signing fundraising email appeals and texts and headlining recorded digital content and other advertising. The governor also has become a top DGA surrogate, with the group using him to burnish the record of Democratic gubernatorial contenders on issues like abortion rights and pitch voters without college degrees (and other demographic cohorts) that have gravitated to the Republican Party under Trump.

That’s especially the case in New Hampshire, where Democrats are hoping to win an open governor’s race after eight years of GOP control under Gov. Chris Sununu. (The Granite State was for decades an early primary state in the Democratic presidential primary, demoted only this cycle under a reorganized nominating calendar spearheaded by President Joe Biden.) Meanwhile, it appears no accident that the DGA chose Pennsylvania for a policy conference later this year, allowing Shapiro to play host.

“He’s a leader for us in reclaiming core values like freedom,” a Democratic operative said, referring to a political theme that until recently seemed to benefit Republicans more than Democrats. 

Meanwhile, Shapiro’s conservative critics counter that the governor has been more showhorse than workhorse, arguing he has not fulfilled campaign promises on centrist policy proposals such as school choice, regulatory reform, and reducing the corporate income tax. Shapiro would likely quibble with these complaints, although it is true that he backed away from supporting school choice legislation since assuming office, blaming the GOP’s unwillingness to compromise.

“We actually agree with him on a number of policies he campaigned on that have broad bipartisan appeal,” said Erik Telford, a spokesman for the Commonwealth Foundation, a free market think tank in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “He’s been a masterful politician when it comes to campaigning. He has not proven his skill at governing.”

Like any skilled party leader, Shapiro made sure in Chicago that the conversation about his work as governor or political plans for the future found its way back to the stars of the moment, Harris and Walz. It’s an approach Shapiro honed as he climbed the political ladder, first as a state representative, then Montgomery County commissioner, Pennsylvania attorney general, and now as governor. 

In Chicago he explained to reporters repeatedly he is wholly dedicated to helping the Democratic ticket defeat Trump, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, in November. Indeed, there might be no better way for Shapiro to cement his stardom in the Democratic Party than for Harris to win Pennsylvania’s 19 Electoral College votes—and therefore the White House—and for the governor to be perceived as the linchpin in that outcome. 

But hidden in the noise of Shapiro’s trademark rhetorical discipline, bolstering what seemed readily apparent by his convention-week itinerary, were signals alluding to his long-term career plans that might simultaneously expose his absence from the Democrats’ 2024 ticket as a mutual, and preferred, decision.

Picking a running mate “was a deeply personal decision for the vice president. It was also a deeply personal decision for me,” Shapiro said, during a wide-ranging interview with veteran Washington journalist John Harris, co-founder of Politico. 

Shapiro added: “One of the things I say as I travel across the commonwealth and try and motivate others to pass bills and make investments to help other people is: ‘I think every Pennsylvanian should have the freedom to chart their own course and the opportunity to succeed.’ And for me, I’ve always tried to do my politics in a way that I could chart my own course and I love being able to do that as governor.”