Who’s Afraid of Josh Shapiro?

The release of a new poll showing Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, coasting to reelection in the Keystone State just as Democrats nationwide lurch left suggests that the party could be readying to reject a successful standard bearer. Mr. Shapiro is up 16 points against the Republican state treasurer, Stacy Garrity. Can Mr. Shapiro — a Jew who, while hardly Menachem Begin, refuses to abjure Israel — win a Democratic presidential primary?The numbers suggest that the party would do well to find out. The Times reports that Mr. Shapiro “leads in nearly every demographic group and is winning 11 percent of President Trump’s 2024 supporters,” in part by cultivating a “pragmatic image.” Sixty percent of Pennsylvanians approve of his work. While half of respondents reckon that the Democrats are too liberal, only 29 percent think the same of Mr. Shapiro. Mr. Shapiro has, remarkably for a centrist in the age of the ascendancy of the Democratic Socialists of America, won the support of younger voters. The survey finds that those younger than 30 back him by 40 percentage points. Only 14 percent of Pennsylvanians overall think Mr. Shapiro is too supportive of the Jewish state, though that number rises among young voters. Mr. Shapiro’s opposition to data centers is galvanizing voters.Mr. Shapiro is no stranger to the thin air that obtains at the summit of national politics. Vice President Harris contemplated naming him as her running mate, only to alight on Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz. That proved a poor choice, as Mr. Walz was little help on the campaign trail. Earlier this year, amid a cascade of fraud scandals, he announced that he would forgo another run for governor.The Pennsylvanian writes in his memoir that Ms. Harris’s vetting team asked “Had I been a double agent for Israel?” Mr. Shapiro noted that the line of questioning “said a lot about some of the people around the VP.” Mr. Shapiro reports that Ms. Harris pressured him to recant his opposition to the pro-Hamas demonstration on college campuses. He refused. He called Ms. Harris’s account of the vetting a tissue of “blatant lies.”We have our disagreements with Mr. Shapiro. He has called Mr. Netanyahu a “failed” and “terrible” leader and accuses the Israeli premier of leading Israel down a “dangerous and destructive path.” To our mind those are judgments best rendered not by the chief executive of Pennsylvania but instead by Israel’s voters, who have time and again kept Mr. Netanyahu in power and who will bring in another verdict this fall. As will voters in this country.Last year, on the first night of Passover just hours after the conclusion of the Seder, a mechanic named Cody Allen Balmer hurled two Molotov cocktails into the Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion. Mr. Shapiro and 21 others were sleeping as fire ripped through the elegant dwelling. The search warrant for Balmer’s arrest cited as a motivating factor for the terrorist attack “perceived injustices toward the people of Palestine.”The question that emerges for Democrats now is whether their growing attachment to the Palestinian cause — some 80 percent of the party views Israel unfavorably — means that Mr. Shapiro is a non-starter for 2028, even as critics of the Jewish state like Senator Chris Van Hollen build momentum. The Democrats once elevated an observant Jew, Senator Joe Lieberman, to within a hanging chad of high office. That, though, was a different party altogether.

Who’s Afraid of Josh Shapiro?

Who’s Afraid of Josh Shapiro?

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