Stacy Garrity received the most votes in history for a Pennsylvania candidate

Last week’s re-election of Republican state treasurer Stacy Garrity appears to have secured the largest number of votes ever recorded by a candidate for statewide office in Pennsylvania.

According to unofficial tallies, in defeating Democratic challenger Erin McClelland last week, Garrity received 3,517,327 votes (52.2%) compared to McClelland’s 3,079,674 (45.5%). state results.

Garrity’s total surpassed the previous record for public office Governor Josh Shapiro in the 2020 attorney general race. said Berwood Yost, director of the Opinion Research Center at Franklin & Marshall College, who reviewed the state data.

“She was definitely ahead of Shapiro,” Yost said of Garrity.

Shapiro in 2020 accumulated 3,461,472 votes to Republican challenger Heather Heidelbaugh’s 3,153,831.

Both 2020 and 2024 were presidential years, increasing overall turnout.

As of Tuesday, Garrity’s vote totals drawn President-elect Donald Trump by just 18 years. Trump appears to have won more votes than any GOP candidate in Pennsylvania history, a position almost shared by Garrity.

In 2020, Shapiro overtook President Joe Biden won 3,458,229 votes by a margin of about 3,200.

“I was thrilled to learn about the vote,” Garrity said in a brief interview Tuesday afternoon. “It’s extremely exciting and I feel very honored.”

That’s a vote total that’s likely to pique Garrity’s interest as a candidate for higher office before 2026, when Shapiro runs for re-election, and 2028, when Democratic Sen. John Fetterman defends his seat for the first time.

Garrity wouldn’t say whether she would do so employ the office of treasurer to vault into higher office as a Democrat Senator Bob Casey he did after one term. “Serving in the U.S. Army Reserve has been the honor of my life, but being treasurer is next door,” she said. “And that’s all I’m focused on right now.”

Garrity, 60, was first elected in 2020 in an upset defeat of Democratic incumbent Joe Torsella. She became the first Republican woman to hold the position in 16 years.

According to National Public Radio, Garrity describes herself on her website as an “Angel of the Desert,” a nickname she received while serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserve in 2004. There she supervised a camp of Iraqi prisoners of war.

One of the main themes of her campaign was ensuring that she set a modern annual record by returning nearly $274 million in unclaimed property to more than 174,000 Pennsylvanians in the fiscal year ending June 2023.

Without the support of the state Democratic establishment in the primary, McClelland ran afoul of Pennsylvania Democratic leaders in her own party after she endorsed North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for Shapiro over Kamala Harris’ vice presidential bid. In her comments, McClelland referred to the sexual harassment scandal involving Shapiro’s former colleague.

On Tuesday, Garrity said the “lack of Democratic support certainly didn’t help” McClelland.

McClelland’s campaign chairman, Chuck Pascal, rejected the notion that the lack of party support hurts the candidate.

Pascal said Garrity was helped by the red wave led by Trump and the ability of Republicans who “seemed to be able to get more of their new voters to vote against it.”