Abington Township, Pennsylvania —
Ever since Kamala Harris started thinking about picking him as her running mate, Josh Shapiro has been the subject of a familiar kind of whisper: People maintain that they don’t have a problem that the Pennsylvania governor is Jewish and a Zionist – but insist others will.
Whether or not he gets into the 2028 presidential race, he says, the pundits and the posters should realize that they’re getting him and voters wrong when they say he can’t be part of the future of the Democratic Party because he’s too centrist, too buttoned up or too supportive of Israel.
“I’m living in the real world, where I’m interacting with people every day as someone who’s open about and proud of his faith,” Shapiro told CNN in an extensive interview not far from his home. “And what I experience for the people of Pennsylvania, the toughest swing state in the entire country, is tolerance, is goodness and above all else, is just a desire to have their elected leaders go to work for them every day and deliver real results.”
For now, Shapiro says his focus is on Pennsylvania – “the state that decides it all,” as he likes to say, where his approval ratings remain high and he once again drew neither a primary challenge nor a strong Republican opponent. He’s looking to run up the score in his reelection campaign this fall and help flip up to four US House seats after his picks for each race won their primaries.
