MEMO: State of the Pennsylvania GOP Primary

MEMO: State of the Pennsylvania GOP Primary

To: Interested Parties
From: DGA Political Director Chris Sloan
Re: New Poll Shows Stacy Garrity Faces Uphill Battle With Own Party, While Gov. Shapiro is Popular Across Party Lines

Despite the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s endorsement of Stacy Garrity, new polling makes it clear that Garrity lacks from Republican primary voters and 2022 GOP nominee Doug Mastriano would begin a potential primary with a large lead.

According to new polling conducted in September 2025, Mastriano leads Garrity by nearly 20 points (39%-20%) in a head to head primary. Mastriano is significantly better-known to GOP primary voters than Garrity and his favorable rating is double Garrity’s. Whether or not Mastriano runs, one thing is clear – Garrity has yet to win over her own base.

Garrity’s candidacy faces numerous challenges: She’s yet to face meaningful scrutiny or answer any tough questions all across Pennsylvania. In the course of a campaign, she’ll have to address her track record of deeply toxic, out of touch positions – from her complete support for cutting health care, killing energy jobs, and raising costs on working families, to her agenda of attacking abortion rights, reproductive freedom, and democracy.

Meanwhile, Governor Shapiro continues to hold strong personal and performance numbers – not just statewide, but even with GOP primary voters. As this new polling shows, 27% of GOP primary voters approve of the Governor’s job performance. Meanwhile, Governor Shapiro continues to hold an approval rating above 60% – with only about a quarter of Pennsylvania voters disapproving of his job performance.

Garrity faces an uphill battle. She has yet to earn the support of GOP primary voters for herself, and even more daunting, faces a primary electorate where more than a quarter approve of the job Governor Shapiro is doing. See below for more new polling, along with key info on how the GOP primary for governor in Pennsylvania is shaping up to be a difficult, uphill challenge for Garrity.

For starters, her own base prefers far-right extremist Doug Mastriano by nearly two to one – and Mastriano hasn’t even entered the race. 

• GOP primary voters prefer Mastriano 39% to 20% in a head to head race against Garrity. He is far better-known (39% can’t rate) than Garrity (66% can’t rate) and Mastriano maintains a significantly higher margin of favorability among their base of 48% to Garrity’s 24%.

• Mastriano has disparaged Garrity, saying “she had no traction” in her 2020 run for office, and adding that she wouldn’t have won without his support. In fact, on the very day she launched her campaign for Governor, Mastriano publicly stated that they should “flip it” and Garrity should be his Lieutenant Governor.

• Despite state GOP insiders’ endorsement of Garrity, Mastriano is still loudly entertaining a run for governor, calling the party’s action “an irrelevant factor” in what would be a toxic and chaotic primary.

The vote to endorse Garrity at the PA GOP committee meeting was far from unanimous. 

• Reporting indicated that “there was no formal count” and that there was “a small chorus of ‘no’” votes during the meeting.

• Mastriano also warned repeatedly that a party endorsement “is a terrible idea” that will “disenfranchise the grassroots” and risks coming across as a top-down edict that will alienate the party’s voter base.

In addition to the headwinds she faces within her own party, Garrity is already on the back foot with families across the Commonwealth. 

• Garrity applauded Trump’s deeply unpopular budget bill, calling it a “huge win,” even though it rips health care away from hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians while ballooning our national deficit and killing over 20,000 energy jobs across the Commonwealth.

• Garrity proudly celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade and backed legislation to restrict abortion access in Pennsylvania.

• Garrity even tried to overturn the will of Pennsylvania voters, falsely claiming for months that Trump won the 2020 election.

While all of this plays out, Governor Shapiro continues to hold strong support from voters across the Commonwealth as he focuses on getting stuff done and delivering results for all Pennsylvanians.

BOTTOM LINE: Faced with this multi-front uphill battle, Garrity has a lot of work ahead of her. As she tacks further to the extreme right than she already has to win over her own base, while simultaneously working to claw support from the nearly 30% of Republican voters who think Governor Shapiro is doing a good job, one thing is certain: Stacy Garrity can’t be trusted to stand up for Pennsylvanians.

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