Gov. Josh Shapiro remains popular in Pennsylvania, even among some Trump supporters

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro remains highly popular among Pennsylvanians – including more than a third of former President Donald Trump’s supporters – while President Josh Shapiro remains highly popular, according to a recent poll from The Inquirer, New York Times and Siena. Joe Biden is struggling in the state. University.

The poll shows that about 57% of Pennsylvanians strongly or somewhat support Shapiro’s leadership. Broken down by party, 77% of Democrats, 42% of Republicans and 39% of independent voters have a favorable opinion of the job Shapiro is doing in his first term as governor of the battleground state.

Meanwhile, according to a poll conducted from April 28 to May 7, Biden has only 38% support.

The poll shows Shapiro has the support of most people regardless of race and education.

The moderate Democrat’s support among Trump and other party voters is significant: Shapiro maintains a favorable rating from the 35% of Pennsylvania voters planning to vote for Trump in November and the likely majority of voters who say they will vote for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This is a sign that Shapiro may be a risky candidate if he runs for president in 2028.

“He’s not very radical, he actually seems to be trying to work with both sides,” said Michael Paletta, 64, a registered Republican who supports Trump but also approves of Shapiro.

“He has been running for president since he became attorney general eight years ago,” said Paletta, who lives in Marsa, Butler County. “He’s as good as anyone. At least he is younger and understands that he is not 80 years old.

Shapiro held extremely high approval ratings for the governor of Pennsylvania no party at this point in his term, even though he is the only governor in the country who must work with a divided legislature in which each party controls one chamber. He continues to promise to govern across the street and advocates for several Republican priorities he has tried to implement, such as private school vouchers.

Shapiro, 50, has become a fixture in the Democratic Party and is among the top candidates Democrats want to run for president in 2028. He is now one of Biden’s top deputies fighting for his re-election on the battleground.

Shapiro first attracted interest from national Democrats when he was elected state attorney general in 2016, when former President Donald Trump also won the state. While serving as AG, he released a historic grand jury report detailing decades of abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and played a key role in defending Pennsylvania against Trump’s attempts invalidate the 2020 elections — all this increased his national prestige.

The Abington native and father of four cemented his central role in the party in 2022 after being elected governor by 15 percentage points over far-right Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano. During his first year and a half in office, he attracted national attention for, among others, his administration’s reopening of I-95 12 days after its collapse and his open denunciation of the former president of the University of Pennsylvania over her comments to Congress.

Burton Siegel, 80, a registered Democrat from Jenkintown, said he has known Shapiro since the governor was a boy. He praised the governor for signing an executive order on his first day in office that eliminates the four-year college degree requirement for most state government positions.

“I think that in order to attract more people to government, it’s also good not to create a barrier that might be unrelated to the job being done,” Siegel said. “And I think he gave a chance to a lot of people who wanted to become public servants but couldn’t because they didn’t have a bachelor’s degree.”

Other top potential contenders in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary include executives in other major states: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin NewsomAND Maryland Governor Wes Moore.

While the nation’s electorate has sturdy opinions about the presidential candidates, voters largely have a favorable opinion of their own governor, according to the statistics-based website 538.

But Shapiro’s ability to attract Trump and third-party voters in one of the nation’s key swing states will give him persuasive leverage if he decides to run for higher office.

Before serving as attorney general and governor, Shapiro was a commissioner in Montgomery County, a suburb of Philadelphia with a population of more than 864,000.

Before his election, the county was a Republican stronghold, and Shapiro influenced it to become a top Democratic target in the state. He also served as a state representative, first elected at age 30, and gained a reputation for abandoning bipartisanship.

Shapiro is the third Jewish governor of Pennsylvania and one of four Jewish governors nationwide. The United States has never elected a Jewish president.

The New York Times’ Shivani Gonzalez contributed to this article.

Explanation: This story has been updated to clarify that Governor Shapiro is the only governor in the country with a divided legislature.