Gov. Shapiro battled-tested winner against Trump-endorsed MAGA candidate. Why it matters

As Democrats consider a replacement for the 2024 Presidential Election, Gov. Josh Shapiro’s victory over a far-right state senator two years ago could show him to be a battle-tested option for vice president.

Pennsylvania’s chief of state has become a serious contender to run alongside Vice President Kamala Harris this year after President Joe Biden announced Sunday he was no longer seeking the Democratic nomination to run against former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

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Shapiro faced off against state Sen. Doug Mastriano, of Franklin County, in the 2022 Pennsylvania’s governor’s race. He won by 12 points and raised eight times as much in campaign contributions.

Mastriano, a retired U.S. Army colonel and state senator since 2019, was endorsed by President Donald Trump over eight other GOP candidates just days before the Republican primary that year.

Mastriano had long been a supporter of unproven claims of voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election and as chair of the Senate Majority Policy Committee held a hearing in Gettysburg that November that saw Rudy Giuliani, poll watchers and a phone call from former President Donald Trump espousing claims of irregularities in the election. Mastriano has also championed legislation to restrict abortion access in Pennsylvania, often without exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Shapiro’s campaign continually blasted Mastriano’s support for Trump and hardline anti-abortion stance throughout the campaign, gaining the endorsement of nine Republican leaders across the state who saw Mastriano as “extreme and dangerous.”

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That victory in Pennsylvania, the largest swing state in the country, could bode well for Shapiro as election integrity and reproductive health have already become top issues in this year’s election.

While the Republican platform has shifted from a national abortion ban to supporting a state-by-state approach to abortion access, but anti-abortion messaging was still prominent during this year’s Republican National Convention.

The convention also ran repeated ads from Trump promising to reform the election process to prevent “what happened in 2020.”

Chris Ullery is the Philadelphia Hub Data Reporter for the USA Today Network. Reach him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter at @ulleryatinell.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Shapiro victory over Mastriano could bode well for Harris ticket spot