A Democratic governor is accused of backstabbing a member of his own party to get revenge for a perceived personal slight.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro secretly helped a Republican state treasurer candidate defeat her Democratic challenger in 2024 because the fellow Dem had criticized his vice presidential ambitions, according to a leaked recording Axios revealed on Sunday.
Bob Brooks, a Shapiro-backed congressional candidate and the president of Pennsylvania’s firefighters union, told students at Lehigh University on Wednesday that the governor had asked his union to back Republican Stacy Garrity in the state’s 2024 treasurer race, rather than the Democratic candidate, Erin McClelland.
“That was a request, ironically, from Gov. Josh Shapiro because Erin McClelland was running against her,” Brooks, 53, said after a student asked why the union had endorsed Garrity in 2024.
In July 2024, as Shapiro was among the crop of politicians aiming to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, McClelland had snubbed her state’s governor for the role and instead pitched North Carolina’s governor.
“I want a VP pick that’s secure enough to be second under a woman, is content to be VP & won’t undermine the President to maneuver his own election & doesn’t sweep sexual harassment under the rug,” McClelland wrote in a now-deleted post on X. “I want someone that can speak to rural voters. That is @RoyCooperNC."
McClelland was referring to the Shapiro team’s handling of a 2023 sexual harassment allegation against his top aide, Mike Vereb, who stayed at his job for months after the complaint was made and then abruptly resigned.
Shapiro declined to endorse McClelland in the 2024 race.
“Josh Shapiro had requested because Stacy, er, Erin McClelland came out hard about something on Josh Shapiro, and really, the Democratic Party as a whole turned on Erin McClelland,” Brooks added. “And he said, ‘I would like you guys to endorse Stacy Garrity.’”
Axios said it had obtained a recording of Brooks’ remarks and confirmed them with a person who had attended the meeting.
Brooks told the outlet, however, that he had “misspoke and made an inaccurate comment.”
“Many people in our party — including organized labor across the commonwealth — were upset with McClelland’s bad-faith attacks against our governor,“ he added. ”The governor did not ask my union to make any endorsements.”
Brooks did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Reached for comment, Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder told the Daily Beast in a statement: “That is an inaccurate comment. The Governor did not ask Bob Brooks to make any endorsements in that race — and the only races he is focused on are winning up and down the ballot this November."
Shapiro has been an avid supporter of Brooks’ campaign for the U.S. House, having encouraged Brooks to run against Republican Rep. Ryan McKenzie and even appearing in a televised advertisement for him, according to the outlet.
In his memoir, the governor wrote that he had taken himself out of contention to be Harris’ VP late in the vetting process.
Garrity, a MAGA Republican, won the state treasurer race in 2024 and is now challenging Shapiro for governor. The Democratic Party has painted the Republican challenger as an “election denier” with an “extreme MAGA agenda.”
A day before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, she called to decertify former President Joe Biden’s win at a rally at Pennsylvania’s Capitol building, while two years later at a Donald Trump rally, she said, “We know that he won.”
However, Garrity has tried to walk back her previous election denial claims.
