Overview

Joshua David Shapiro was born on June 20, 1973, in Kansas City, Missouri. He spent a few of his early childhood years on a U.S. Navy base where his father, Steven Shapiro, served as a medical officer. The family then relocated to the town of Dresher, Pennsylvania. From 1991-1995 Shapiro attended the University of Rochester, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science.

Prior to entering the political arena as a candidate for elected office, Shapiro logged some experience working for several establishment Democrats. For instance, when he was 21 years old he served as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. In September 1996 he began working for Peter Deutsch, a legislator who represented Florida’s 20th Congressional District in the U.S. House. Shapiro also served stints as a senior foreign-policy advisor to U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, and as chief of staff to U.S. Representative Joseph Hoeffel of Pennsylvania.

Moreover, Shapiro worked in the Public Diplomacy Department of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. from April to September 1996.

After earning a JD from the Georgetown Law Center in 2002, Shapiro was hired an attorney by the Philadelphia-based firm of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll LLP.

In 2004, Shapiro was elected to represent Pennsylvania’s 153rd District in the state’s House of Representatives, and he was subsequently reelected in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

Shapiro also practiced corporate law from 2006-2017 with Stradley, Ronon, Stevens, and Young, a firm headquartered in Philadelphia.

In 2011, Shapiro was elected to the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners, where he served as chair from 2012-2016, and vice chair from 2016-2017.

In April 2015, Tom Wolf, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, named Shapiro as chairman of the state’s Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

In 2016, Shapiro ran for the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General. His campaign was supported by such notables as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In the November general election, Shapiro captured 51.4 percent of the vote to defeat his Republican opponent, State Senator John Rafferty Jr.  Four years later, Shapiro was reelected with 50.9% of the vote, outpacing Republican challenger Heather Heidelbaugh.

In October 2021, Shapiro announced the launch of his campaign for Governor of Pennsylvania. On November 8, 2022, he defeated Republican opponent Doug Mastriano by nearly 15 percentage points, thereby becoming the third Jewish governor in the state’s history.

Shapiro’s Stance on Immigration

Miscellaneous Views

According to OnTheIssues.org, Shapiro believes that:

• restrictions on immigration are basically racist because they tend to prevent non-whites from entering the United States;
• social services should be available to all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status; and
• illegal aliens should be offered amnesty if they have been productive members of American society.

Opposing Trump’s “Muslim Ban”

In 2017, Shapiro condemned what congressional Democrats and mainstream media outlets falsely characterized as President Trump’s “Muslim ban.” The debate centered around the fact that Trump, professing a desire “to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America,” had issued a January 27, 2017 executive order calling for the temporary suspension of almost all travel and refugee admissions to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations that were hotbeds of Islamic terrorism and/or civil war: Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria. Trump’s order also mandated the implementation of an “extreme vetting” process for any and all immigrants and visitors to the U.S.

Joe Biden, for one, described Trump’s executive order as a “morally wrong” manifestation of “anti-Muslim bias” that constituted “a betrayal of all our foundations of American history and American freedom, religious freedom.” But Biden and other Trump critics generally failed to mention the fact that in selecting the targets of his executive order, Trump chose precisely the same seven countries named in the Visa Waiver Program Improvement & Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, which had passed easily through Congress before being signed into law by President Obama in December 2015. Notwithstanding that precedent, Shapiro portrayed Trump’s policy as a uniquely malicious, discriminatory affront to Islamic people, stating: “I think it’s hard to say that this was intended as something other than a ban on a particular faith when it was originally designed.” Animated by that belief, Shapiro joined 16 other state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of a federal judge’s February 2017 decision to block the implementation of Trump’s order.

Opposing Trump’s Effort to End DACA

On September 5, 2017, President Trump’s then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke announced the administration’s decision to rescind the 2012 memorandum by which President Obama had enacted “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) — a rule designed to prevent the deportation of some 800,000 illegal aliens who had first come to the U.S. as minors. After that attempted rescission was challenged by U.S. district courts in three states and the District of Columbia, the Supreme Court in June 2020 issued a 5-4 decision asserting that President Trump’s effort to terminate DACA was in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because it failed to: (a) explain the reason underlying the recission, and (b) consider less-drastic alternatives. Shapiro, for his part, joined 19 fellow Democratic attorneys general in sending a July 21 letter to Trump, exhorting him to keep DACA in place. Shapiro also wrote the following in a statement he sent to the Pittsburgh City Paper:

“The Federal Government put the DACA program in place to allow young adults who were brought to our country as children without making a choice and who often know no other home, to continue pursuing their education, careers and military service on behalf of the United States. These young men & women have undergone background checks and are contributing to our economy and our communities — our government shouldn’t go back on its promise to these young men and women now.”

Opposing Trump’s “Public Charge” Rule

In 2019, the Trump administration — reasoning from the premise that new immigrants should not be permitted to settle in the United States if they are deemed likely to become dependent on the American government for money and support — announced its intent to expand the list of government benefits that it would view as negative considerations when trying to determine whether an aspiring immigrant was likely to be a potential “public charge.”

In response, Shapiro joined more than 20 fellow attorneys general and attorneys-general-elect in challenging the new Trump policy. Further, he filed a lawsuit arguing that the policy violated the equal-protection guarantee inherent in the Fifth Amendment‘s “due process” clause. Said Shapiro in a press release: “The Trump Administration’s Public Charge Rule is a blatant attack on low-income immigrants who are here legally, contributing to our society, and standing on their own two feet — the exact people who are welcomed to our nation by the Emma Lazarus poem emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty.”

Opposing Trump’s Border Wall

AG Shapiro also condemned President Trump’s February 2019 declaration that the flood of illegal migrants who had been crossing America’s southern border by the thousands on a daily basis, constituted a “national emergency” — a designation that Trump sought to use as a means of justifying the construction of a wall along that border. Accusing Trump of having concocted a “fictional emergency,” Shapiro said: “I am deeply concerned about the legality of President Trump’s national emergency declaration and its impact on Pennsylvania.” “Congress and the President must act to fix our broken immigration system,” he added, “but I will not allow essential funding for Pennsylvania to be held hostage in the process.”

Refusing to Send National Guard Troops to Southern Border

In early 2024, more than 40 members of the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania State Senate passed a resolution to send Pennsylvania National Guard troops to the U.S. southern border to help “combat the historic rise in illegal immigration in Texas,” but Governor Shapiro declined to dispatch any of those troops. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said that the border problem could only be solved if Congress were to “pass comprehensive reform to fix our broken immigration system.”

Shapiro’s Positions on Other Key Issues

The “Black Lives Matter” Mythology

Shapiro has publicly expressed support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and its toxic view of American culture. Established in 2013 by a trio of committed Marxist revolutionaries, BLM depicts the U.S. as a nation irredeemably steeped in “anti-Black racism.” True to its Communist roots, BLM harbors a deep contempt for free-market capitalism, Jewish people worldwide, and “the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” On May 30, 2020 – five days after the infamous death of George Floyd in Minneapolis – AG Shapiro released a statement that said:

“There is a rot at the center of our society, and this week it was laid bare on the street under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer….

“We still live with the consequences of slavery and racism. It has been institutionalized over generations in our criminal justice system, our economy, our health care system, and our schools.

“The killing of George Floyd is an especially painful reminder of how far we have yet to travel as a nation to find peace and equality — because this could be anywhere in America.

“In the hours that followed George Floyd’s death, I have spoken to many Pennsylvanians who saw themselves in George. Too many Americans see how our society does not care about them, and see the rule of law applying to different people in different ways. I have listened to young black Pennsylvanians who feel scared and helpless, and question if we can fix the problems that have plagued our communities for generations. …

“When George Floyd died in the street, surrounded by officers sworn to protect the peace, millions of Americans felt the pain of being told ‘you don’t matter.’ …

“We must give people the confidence that through hard work we can heal our society, and lift the knee that holds down Black Americans and holds back the potential of our country. Institutionalized racism was put in place over generations by people. It will take time, but as individuals we have the power to end it …”

Four days later, on the afternoon of June 3, 2020 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Shapiro participated in a “March Against Injustice and Gun Violence.” While the event was in progress, Shapiro posted to his Twitter account: “Black lives matter. Racism must end. I am here to listen.”

Abortion

Shapiro believes that all women should have an unrestricted right to abortion-on-demand for any reason, at any stage of pregnancy – and, in cases of economic hardship, subsidized by taxpayers.

When Shapiro ran for governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, he pledged to veto any bill by which the state legislature might seek to restrict women’s access to abortion. “The next governor is going to have a bill on their desk that will restrict or outlaw abortion rights,” he told reporters in May 2022, “and they will have a decision as to whether to sign it or veto it. I will, of course, veto it. My opponents would sign it.”

In May 2022 as well, Shapiro, claiming that “abortion is health care,” pledged that he would, if elected governor, “expand access to reproductive care.”

In its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision striking down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Whereas Roe had guaranteed federal constitutional protections for abortion rights, Dobbs returned the responsibility for those rights to each individual state. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” Reacting with outrage to news of the Dobbs decision, AG Shapiro released a June 2022 statement claiming that this “shameful moment for our country and for the Court” had “upended fifty years of settled law and subjected the health and private lives of millions of American women to the whims of politicians.”

In August 2023, Governor Shapiro announced that his administration would soon be ending Pennsylvania’s 30-year-long relationship with the nonprofit organization Real Alternatives, a funder of anti-abortion crisis-counseling centers and maternity homes for pregnant women. “For decades, taxpayer dollars have gone to fund Real Alternatives,” said Shapiro in a statement. “My administration will not continue that pattern – we will ensure women in this Commonwealth receive the reproductive health care they deserve.” “Pennsylvanians made clear by electing me as governor that they support a woman’s freedom to choose [abortion]” he added.

In his State of the State address to the Pennsylvania legislature on February 6, 2024, Governor Shapiro announced that his newly proposed budget “increases support for health care providers that provide high-quality family planning tools and reproductive health care services” because “women and girls deserve to make their own choices about their own bodies.”

In July 2024, Governor Shapiro said that his administration would not defend in court an existing Pennsylvania law that barred state Medicaid dollars from being used to fund abortions. “Pennsylvania’s Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex,” he said in a statement, “and as our State Supreme Court ruled earlier this year, the state ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion services is sex-based discrimination.” “The current ban imposes an unsustainable burden on women,” Shapiro added, “and therefore violates our State Constitution. My Administration will not defend this ban in court.”

Death Penalty

Prior to launching his 2022 gubernatorial run in October 2021, Shapiro publicly endorsed the use of capital punishment for what he called certain “heinous crimes.” But during the campaign, he shifted his position markedly, saying: “I’d like to see legislation come to my desk to abolish the death penalty in Pennsylvania and sign it.” And in an April 2022 interview, Shapiro claimed that America’s “broken” criminal-justice system – which “for too long … has targeted communities of color in an unfair way,” particularly vis-a-vis capital punishment — was “in need of real repair and reform.” Further, he vowed that, as governor, he would never sign a death warrant for anyone who was already on death row.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

During his student days at the University of Rochester in 1993, Shapiro published an op-ed in the Campus Times student newspaper titled “Peace not Possible,” wherein he wrote that “peace between Arabs and Israelis is virtually impossible and will never come” for one simple reason: “Palestinians will not coexist peacefully. They do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States. They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.” But Shapiro’s perspective changed dramatically over the years that followed, and he eventually came to endorse a “two-state solution” whereby Israel theoretically could exist side-by-side with a sovereign Palestinian nation.

Many of Shapiro’s public statements regarding the Middle East have been strongly supportive of Israel. For example:

• After news broke in 2021 that the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company, which accused Israel of conducting an “illegal occupation” of Palestinian lands, was refusing to license its product for sale in East Jerusalem and the so-called West Bank, Republican state Rep. Aaron Kaufer implored AG Shapiro, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, and Governor Tom Wolf to invoke Pennsylvania’s anti-BDS law prohibiting the state from signing any contracts with companies that sought to punish Israel by means of boycotts, divestitures, or sanctions. “BDS is rooted in antisemitism,” Shapiro wrote in a statement to Kaufer. “The stated goal of this amorphous movement is the removal of Jewish citizens from the region and I strongly oppose their efforts.”
• Following the barbaric Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023 that killed at least 1,200 innocent Israelis while wounding another 4,500+, Governor Shapiro said unequivocally: “I think this is a moment where we all need to come together to recognize what is so clearly wrong, the acts of Hamas, and what is right, and that is Israel, our key ally’s right to defend herself in the face of this barbarism. This is not a moment for moral equivalency. Hamas is hellbent on destroying Israel and ridding the region of Jews.”

But these pro-Israel positions have been counterbalanced by Shapiro’s condemnations of Israeli leaders and their actions — particularly in the post-October 7th era:

• In November 2023, Governor Shapiro told NBC News that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “a terrible leader” who “has driven Israel to an extreme that has been bad for Israel and bad for the stability in the Middle East.”
• When Shapiro in December 2023 called for the creation of a Palestinian state, he blamed both Hamas and Israelhe existing hostilities. While noting that “lasting coexistence” must be “predicated upon the Palestinians” finally renouncing the Hamas Charter’s clearly articulated desire to “rid the [Mideast] of Israel and of Jews,” Shapiro simultaneously voiced his “hope that Israel finds the will to replace its leadership because I think its leadership has been a real destructive part of what led to, in part, October 7.”
• Shapiro doubled down on that theme in January 2024 when he said: “I personally believe Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the worst leaders of all time and has steered Israel in a wrong direction, and made Israel less safe and made their future less bright because of his leadership.”
• As Israel’s retaliative, anti-Hamas military operations in Gaza continued through 2024, Shapiro grew increasingly critical of the damage that the Israel Defense Forces were inflicting. In March 2024 he said: “We can’t forget the genesis of this [conflict], but we also can’t ignore the death and the destruction that’s occurred in Gaza.”

Continuing to lament the effects of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Shapiro in August 2025 demanded that the Trump administration increase the amount of humanitarian aid it was sending to that region. “I think our nation, the United States of America, has a moral responsibility to flood the zone with aid and make sure those children that need to be fed get the food and the nourishment and the medicines that they need to be able to survive this,” he stated. “It is awful what is happening in Gaza. And we all have a responsibility to be there for those children.”

Gender Ideology

In May 2022, Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign website pledged that: “As Governor, Josh will put his full capital behind the effort to finally ban discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals in Pennsylvania.” Toward that end, said the website, Shapiro would “finally ban conversion therapy for minors.” In other words, he wished to outlaw therapeutic practices aimed at changing a confused young person’s gender identity to align with his or her biological reality.

Legalization of Marijuana

In September 2021, Attorney General Shapiro said: “We must … expunge the records of those serving time for non-violent marijuana convictions — and that is non-negotiable.”

Shapiro, as Governor, touched on this theme again during his State of the State address to the Pennsylvania legislature in February 2024, when he said: “I ask you to come together and send to my desk a bill that legalizes marijuana.”

Voting Rights & Policies

According to OnTheIssues.org, Shapiro believes that voter ID laws are in essence racist schemes designed to suppress minority voting.

On his gubernatorial campaign website, Shapiro in May 2022 promised to “expand early voting”; “set up automatic voter registration”; “veto any efforts to restrict mail-in voting”; “expand pre-registration opportunities for young people [aged 16-17]”; and “implement same-day voter registration through Election Day.” By way of these measures, he boasted, it would be “easier than ever for legal voters to participate in our democracy.” Contrary to Shapiro’s rhetoric, however, Heritage Foundation analyses have shown that each of the aforementioned practices advocated by Shapiro tend to increase the likelihood of fraud and errors in the tabulation of votes in political races.[1]

On September 19, 2023, Governor Shapiro announced that Pennsylvania thenceforth would automatically register voters while they were in the process of obtaining documents like driver’s licenses and official identification cards at a Department of Motor Vehicles location – unless those people explicitly stated that they wished to opt out of the registration process. This new policy represented a reversal of the existing practice whereby state residents were asked, while filling out their DMV paperwork, if they wished to opt in to becoming registered voters. “Automatic voter registration is a commonsense step to ensure election security and save Pennsylvanians time and tax dollars,” Shapiro said in a press release. He neglected, however, to address the very serious downside of such a step, as described by The Heritage Foundation:

“States should not implement automatic voter registration by registering individuals to vote, based on information obtained from the DMV or other state agencies or public assistance offices, without asking their permission or getting their consent. Such a system frequently results in the registration of large numbers of ineligible individuals such as felons and non-citizens as well as multiple registrations of the same individual when that individual interacts with different state agencies. Moreover, because many individuals have property and other interests in more than one state, automatic registration may result in individuals becoming registered to vote in multiple states.”

“Requiring automatic registration from government databases,” adds Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky, “risks the integrity of the election process and improperly shifts the responsibility for registering from the individual to the government.”

When Democrat Bob Casey refused to concede defeat after multiple news outlets had called the November 2024 U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania for Casey’s Republican opponent Dave McCormick, Democrat election officials ignored a Republican motion to prevent “noncompliant” – i.e., undated and misdated — ballots from being counted in the election recount. Shapiro, for his part, chose not to rebuke those Democrats until after a November 18th Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling had ordered all counties statewide to reject any noncompliant ballots. After the Court announced its decision, Shapiro finally stated: “As we move forward, I want to be clear: any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process.”

Senate Filibuster

In November 2021, gubernatorial candidate Shapiro called for the suspension of the Senate filibuster rule which required that any proposed legislation must garner 60 Senate votes as a prerequisite to ending unlimited debate and bringing the bill to a simple majority vote. The suspension of the filibuster at that time would have empowered the Democrats, who held a majority in the Senate, to forcibly advance their legislative agendas without even a single Republican vote in agreement. Said Shapiro, who was intent on promoting the passage of both state and federal gun-control legislation: “If you’re telling me that the [legislative] inaction that is causing the loss of life [through gun violence] every single day in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can be fixed by doing away with the filibuster, then, hell, yes, do away with the filibuster. It’s a vestige of a Senate from yesteryear that has rendered it unable to solve the big, pressing problems of the day.”

Minimum Wage

In his February 2024 State of the State address, Governor Shapiro said: “Pennsylvanians need to earn a decent wage. And come on guys, let’s be real, our minimum wage has been stuck at 7.25 an hour for 15 years. It’s a shanda [Yiddish word meaning ‘shame’]! If you don’t know what that means, ask the budget secretary later. It’s time we raise our minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour.”

“Right to Work”

Shapiro’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign website said: “As Governor, Josh will … veto any legislation that seeks to make Pennsylvania a right-to-work state” – i.e., a state where employees in certain fields cannot be forced to join a labor union or to pay union dues as a condition of employment. As the National Right to Work Committee explains: “The Right to Work principle … affirms the right of every American to work for a living without being compelled to belong to a union. Compulsory unionism in any form … is a contradiction of the Right to Work principle and the fundamental human right of freedom that the principle represents…. [E]very individual must have the right, but must not be compelled, to join a labor union.”

Shapiro doubled down on his opposition to “right-to-work” principles during his State of the State Address on March 7, 2023, when he said: “[A]ll workers should have the right to organize and bargain collectively. Hear me on this–so long as I am your Governor, Pennsylvania will never be a right-to-work state.”

Fracking

When he was Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, Shapiro oversaw the production of a 2020 grand jury report stating, in his words, that “when it comes to fracking, Pennsylvania [had] failed” in its “duty to set, and enforce, ground rules that protect public health and safety.”

In October 2021, AG Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign website said: “Josh criminally charged multiple fracking companies for repeated violations of Pennsylvania law, detailing the systemic failure of the state government and the fracking industry to protect Pennsylvanians’ health and safety.”

Crime

In December 2023, Governor Shapiro signed into law a bill that was designed, as CBS News reported, to “limit the circumstances under which a non-violent offender on probation can be sent to jail” for various transgressions.

Affirmative Action

Shapiro believes that public and private employers alike should be legally required to implement affirmative-action hiring and promotion policies that give preference to nonwhites and women, as compensation for historical injustices.

He also naintains that race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identification should be taken into account by state agencies when making decisions on public employment, state contracting, and state college/university admissions.

Vice-Presidential Consideration, 2024

On July 21, 2024, President Joe Biden, whose polling numbers and political donations had been declining ever-more precipitously with each passing day since his disastrous June 27, 2024 debate performance against Donald Trump, announced that he was terminating his reelection campaign and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the Democratic Party presidential ticket. Shapiro immediately endorsed Harris as well, saying: “Kamala Harris is a patriot worthy of our support, and she will continue the work of generations of Americans who came before us to perfect our union, protect our democracy, and advance real freedom. She has served the country honorably as Vice President and she is ready to be President.”

Shapiro’s swift and emphatic endorsement of Harris sparked speculation that he – as the popular governor of a key battleground state — might be named as Harris’ vice presidential running mate. But ultimately, it was not to be. On August 6, 2024, Harris announced her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for the VP role.

Praising Harris’ Flip Flops on Various Issues

During the September 6, 2024 broadcast of ABC’s The View, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said to Shapiro: “Kamala Harris is running a very different campaign than she did when she ran in the 2020 cycle. She’s moving to the center on a number of issues, she’s walked back previously held positions like calling for banning fracking.” Shapiro replied: “I think it’s a sign of strength when you evolve on a position. … She has listened, and I think that’s important.”

Contempt for President Trump & His Supporters, 2024

Describing then-President Joe Biden as “someone who is honest and decent,” Shapiro in February 2024 declared that he was “proud to support him” for reelection. “[H]e’s been a partner to many of us across the country in moving our country forward and saving our economy from ruin and helping America get back up on its feet post-COVID,” Shapiro added. “This is a president who delivered.”

In stark contrast to his depiction of Biden, Shapiro characterized Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as “an agent of total chaos — someone who wants to restrict our freedom and someone who puts himself first.” “All they hear from Donald Trump,” Shapiro said on another occasion in 2024, “is a whole bunch of whining about this country. And I think Donald Trump’s got to quit whining, got to quit trying to divide us…. I got a message to Donald Trump and all of his negativity and whining: stop shit-talking America.”

In a June 2024 appearance on MSNBC’s Deadline, Shapiro voiced his contempt for Trump supporters, describing them as “profoundly and pathetically weak people who don’t swear allegiance to a flag, but to Donald Trump.” “They are people who have lost really just the sort of core vision of you know,” he added, “Reagan’s Republican Party, the Republican Party that you worked for in a really noble and honorable way. That’s all out the window. Now, they just look straight to that one man…. Why they continue to follow him in many ways is a reflection on just the weak people that they are, more than anything else.”

As Election Day 2024 grew increasingly near, however, Shapiro — perhaps for the sake of political expediency — felt compelled to distance himself from such broad-stroke smears aimed at scores of millions of Trump supporters nationwide. Consider, for instance, his reaction after Joe Biden — during an October 29, 2024 Zoom fundraising call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino — made reference to a recent incident where comic Tony Hinchcliffe, during his gig as a warmup act for a Trump campaign rally in New York, had jokingly characterized Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Said Biden: “Just the other day, a speaker at his [Trump’s] rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Well, let me tell you something, I don’t, I don’t know the Puerto Rican[s] that I know, the Puerto Rico where I’m fr — in my home state of Delaware. They’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his [Trump’s] supporters.” CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins subsequently asked Shapiro for his reaction to Biden’s depiction of Trump supporters as “garbage.” “I had not heard that until now, Kaitlin, so I’m kind of giving you my fresh reaction to it,” Shapiro replied. “I would never insult the good people of Pennsylvania or any Americans even if they chose to support a candidate that I didn’t support.”

Opposing Trump’s Deployment of National Guard & Marines to Los Angeles

In early June 2025, violent protests and riots – during which some participants hurled rocks, bricks, and chunks of broken concrete at police officers — erupted in Los Angeles to oppose the Trump administration’s deployment of ICE agents to apprehend illegal aliens at multiple locations across the city. After two days of such clashes, President Trump announced, over the objections of Governor Gavin Newsom, that he would federalize the California National Guard and dispatch 2,000 of its troops along with 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to quell the violence. A few days later, Trump sent an additional 2,000 National Guardsmen to L.A.  Governor Newsom and other California officials responded by suing the Trump administration for allegedly violating the Posse Comitatus Act and the Tenth Amendment, and exceeding presidential authority under Title 10 of the United States Code.

On June 8, 2025, Shapiro was one of 20+ Democratic governors who signed a statement backing Newsom and characterizing President Trump’s “alarming abuse of power” as an example of “federal interference and intimidation” that “undermines the mission of our service members, erodes public trust, and shows [that] the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement.” “He’s injected chaos into the world order,” Shapiro said of Trump. “He’s injected it into our economy; he is trying to inject chaos into our streets by doing what he did with the Guard in California.”

Arson Attack & Assassination Attempt

At approximately 2 a.m. on April 13, 2025 – the first night of Passover — an arsonist set fire to the Governor’s Residence where Shapiro lived with his wife and four children. The southern portion of the residence sustained a considerable amount of damage, but everyone was evacuated safely. Later that day, a 38-year-old Pennsylvania man with no formal political affiliation, who admitted to “harboring hatred” for Shapiro, was arrested and charged with attempted homicide, aggravated arson, burglary, reckless endangerment, terrorism, and multiple counts of aggravated assault. The would-be assailant subsequently told investigators that he would have beaten Shapiro with a hammer if he were to have come into close enough contact with him. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi later said at a news conference: “I firmly believe that they wanted to kill [Shapiro].”

Footnotes:

1. https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/the-costs-early-voting
   https://www.heritage.org/report/mandatory-voter-registration-how-universal-registration-threatens-electoral-integrity
   https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/we-shouldnt-be-promoting-voting-mail
   https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/election-reform-north-carolina-and-the-myth-voter-suppression
   https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2021-02/FS_199.pdf