HONESDALE, PA — Out on Main Street, a noisy tractor hauled a wagon full of parents, young children and cell-phone-toting visitors through downtown Honesdale—just one of the festivities …
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HONESDALE, PA — Out on Main Street, a noisy tractor hauled a wagon full of parents, young children and cell-phone-toting visitors through downtown Honesdale—just one of the festivities involved in the borough’s annual Harvest and Heritage Days. Meanwhile, a growing number of long-time, mostly older Wayne County residents congregated within the walls of the Wayne County Democratic headquarters—the old CVS building—awaiting the arrival of PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate looking to succeed Gov. Tom Wolf.
Shapiro arrived late, sporting a casual, no-tie, jeans-and-a-button-up look, addressing the rural constituency with a rural-friendly, “ya’ll.”
He apologized for his tardiness, saying that he had just visited a small, local farm and that he just “couldn’t stop asking questions.” As he transitioned into his stump speech, he conveyed a sort of urgent optimism, telling the crowd that things were dire, but that they’re looking up as well.
“It’s all on the line right now,” he said about the upcoming election. “[I came to Honesdale] to tell you I feel real good about where we are.”
It’s not the first time Shapiro finds himself at odds with his Republican opponent, PA state Sen. Doug Mastriano. In 2020, as Mastriano joined Donald Trump in his unsuccessful effort to overturn the commonwealth’s election result, which tilted in favor of Joe Biden, Shapiro oversaw the state’s legal defense of its own voting integrity.
Mastriano attended the pro-Trump demonstration on January 6—though he says he never entered the Capitol Building like many of the rioters that day did. While campaigning, he’s talked about how getting elected could provide him with greater sway over Pennsylvania’s elections in the future. He stated the following on a radio program in March:
“[As governor,] I get to appoint the secretary of state who’s delegated from me the power to make the corrections to elections, the voting logs and everything. I could decertify every machine in the state with the stroke of a pen.”
Many call Mastriano “far-right.” Shapiro called him “super-dangerous and super-extreme” on many issues, but especially that of abortion. According to Mastriano, if elected he will sign the “heartbeat bill” into law, end funding to Planned Parenthood and expand counseling for adoption services.
“He’s not focused on cutting your costs, helping seniors stay in homes, giving children a better education, he’s focused on charging women with murder for making decisions about their own bodies,” Shapiro said, referencing particularly strict anti-abortion policies Mastriano called for in 2019 that he has since shied away from.
The Republican-controlled legislature will present the future governor with a bill to outlaw abortions in Pennsylvania, Shapiro said. If he’s the governor, he promises to veto that bill.
“We shouldn’t let the politicians in Harrisburg get between a women and her doctor,” he said.
As with the abortion issue, the two candidates are fundamentally at odds on how to fix the state’s broken education system. For Shapiro, it’s about investing more into underserved communities—something PA has done so poorly that it’s the subject of an ongoing landmark court battle.
More broadly, though, Shapiro said he wants to end the state’s reliance on standardized testing, which he claims fails to measure both a student’s intelligence and teacher’s job performance.
Mastriano he would cut per-pupil spending in public schools nearly in half, in its place providing state-funded vouchers—giving parents more freedom to send their children to private, charter or religious schools.
Throughout the rest of his roughly 20-minute remarks, Shapiro talked about creating “safer communities” by hiring 2,000 additional police officers throughout the commonwealth. He touted other promises, like investing in the agricultural sector and clean energy jobs, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and ensuring that all people in commonwealth have access to high-speed internet.
Bringing things to a close, Shapiro reprised his sense of urgency about this year’s election, imploring the assembled voters to reach out to reach out to their neighbors and family members with differing political views, and talk to them about the difficult issues.
“Now is the moment when we’ve got to engage,” Shapiro said. “We’ve got to take off the red jerseys and blue jerseys, and wear the Pennsylvania jersey… We can’t let this dangerous extremist run our commonwealth.”
These days, it’s difficult to place much stock in pre-election polling. However, for whatever they’re worth, most polls show Shapiro with a safe lead over Mastriano. According to the latest Trafalgar poll, around 53 percent of 1,000 likely Pennsylvania voters support Shapiro, compared to 43.5 percent who support Mastriano. The poll also suggests that Shapiro has won over more Republicans than Mastriano has won over Democrats.
This year’s election will take place on Tuesday, November 8. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The last day to register to vote is October 24. The last day to request a mail-in ballot is November 1.
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