HARRISBURG — His name wasn’t on the ballot in 2024, but Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro still spent more than $5.5 million campaigning this year. Much of that money, however, didn’t go directly to the Democrats up for election in the commonwealth.

A review of Shapiro’s campaign finance reports for the year shows that he spent almost $1.3 million on pricey consultants, and almost $1 million on a combination of private airfare, hotels, and event planning in 13 states, including Pennsylvania, alongside smaller expenditures on new cameras and online clothing retailers.

Shapiro’s spokesperson, Manuel Bonder, said these expenses were all for the good of Democrats inside and outside Pennsylvania.

“Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Governor Shapiro was a top surrogate for candidates up and down the ballot and campaigned tirelessly across the Commonwealth and in key swing states — working to defend every single seat of the State House Democratic majority and elect pro-freedom candidates at every level,” Bonder said in a statement.

Shapiro raked a lot of donations into his already strong campaign account during and after his time as a vice presidential contender this summer. Newly filed reports show that he ended November with more than $10.6 million on hand.

Recent big donors included former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, California developer and stem cell research advocate Robert Klein, and Los Angeles-based talent manager Scooter Braun.

The cash puts Shapiro in a strong financial position heading into what could be a competitive 2026 reelection race while allowing him to continue to build a national brand.

Where exactly did Shapiro’s money go?

Shapiro spent more than $5.5 million out of his campaign account this year.

Of that, about $1.7 million went to Pennsylvania candidates. The rest went toward consultants, private flights, hotels, events and meals for his campaign in 13 states including Pennsylvania, among other expenses.

Of the $1.3 million the campaign put toward consulting, the biggest chunks went to Denver-based political advertising firm Ascend Digital Strategies and to California fundraising advisor Cooper Teboe. Each received $570,000 in fees.

Teboe, who connects major Silicon Valley donors to Democratic candidates, has worked with Shapiro previously. The governor’s financial reports routinely show millions of dollars from tech moguls like Reid Hoffman, who co-founded LinkedIn. He also receives donations from Hollywood producers and celebrities, and other West Coast megadonors like Karla Jurvetson and Jennifer Duda, who are both physicians.

Of the almost $1 million Shapiro spent on travel and accommodations, the majority — $641,000 — went toward private flights. He also spent at least $121,000 on hotels and $27,000 on meals.

Some of those expenses, such as $180 at an Michigan gastropub and $725 at Atlanta’s Ritz-Carlton, illustrate his frequent stops in other swing states in the lead-up to the presidential election.

Shapiro also spent at least $185,000 to attend the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Nearly 80% of that tab went toward renting an event space at a renovated church where he hosted attendees during the four-day affair.

Shapiro also spent $18,000 on hotels in California and $14,000 on lodging in Florida. Most of the latter paid for time at the five-star Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, which advertises that “guests are welcomed with champagne, breathtaking ocean views and cooling tropical breezes.”

His campaign also spent more than $34,000 on hotels in Philadelphia — though he lives just outside of the city — including $13,000 at the swanky Four Seasons, where guests can “revel in breathtaking, unobstructed views” of the city from the 60th floor of the Comcast Center.

Bonder told Spotlight PA that the Four Seasons expense was related to Shapiro hosting an annual policy conference for the Democratic Governors Association.

How did Shapiro help Pa. Dems?

Many of the candidates down the ballot foundered in the commonwealth this year.

While Democrats narrowly kept their majority in the state House and didn’t lose ground in the GOP-controlled state Senate, Republicans easily won races for Pennsylvania’s three row offices — attorney general, auditor general and treasurer.

Democrats told Spotlight PA that they don’t blame Shapiro, or any other single person, for those losses. However, several operatives for the party said they wished the governor had used some of the millions he still has on hand to boost state candidates a little more.

Most spoke on condition of anonymity because of Shapiro’s power within the party.

The money Shapiro donated to state-level Democrats on the ballot in 2024 amounted to about 30% of his total campaign spending for the year.

He gave $1.25 million and $350,000 to the state House and Senate campaign committees, respectively. He also gave $100,000 to attorney general candidate Eugene DePasquale and $25,000 to auditor general candidate Malcolm Kenyatta.

Shapiro’s predecessor, Democrat Tom Wolf, spent just $210,000 on down-ballot Pennsylvania races in 2016, though he ended the year with much less on hand than Shapiro — $1.7 million.

But in 2020, without a reelection race to run, Wolf poured $2.6 million into lower-level Democratic general election campaigns, particularly for legislative seats in the then GOP-controlled General Assembly.

Chuck Pascal, who chaired the campaign of Democratic treasurer candidate Erin McClelland and runs the Armstrong County Democratic Committee, told Spotlight PA that additional money from Shapiro likely would have made little difference given the party’s weak performance across the board.

Shapiro gave no money to McClelland, a political outsider. She raised far less than Kenyatta, for instance, but ultimately got only 20,000 fewer votes than he did.

But Pascal, who noted he was speaking for himself and not McClelland, does think there’s at least one area where Shapiro could have done more.

“The one glaring thing in the results was that turnout was down in the Southeast, and particularly in Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties,” he said.

Shapiro is from Montgomery County. He previously represented a state House district there and served as county commissioner.

“Given the governor’s political strength in the southeast,” Pascal added, more spending there to increase voter engagement “could have been a place where he could at least have saved Bob Casey.”

Casey, Pennsylvania’s senior Democratic U.S. Senator, lost his race by just more than 15,000 votes.

According to Shapiro’s campaign, the governor appeared at 25 public events in Southeast Pennsylvania between late July — when President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid — and Election Day.

The extent of the work that a governor, or any other political figure, does for their party during an election doesn’t all show up in public reports. A governor can join fundraising calls to help persuade donors, appear at national events to talk about important races in their state, or share intelligence about likely donors with various campaign committees — among other intangibles.

Bonder, Shapiro’s spokesperson, said that’s what Shapiro was doing. “His work to make key endorsements, stump at events, raise money, film digital and TV ads, and more was unmatched in Pennsylvania,” he said.

For instance, the Saturday before the election, Shapiro appeared at two canvass kickoffs for swing district Democratic candidates — one in Bucks County and one in Northampton County.

At the former, Shapiro warmed up the dozens-deep crowd gathered in a suburban park for state Rep. Brian Munroe, D-Bucks, extolling them that “you have the power in your hand” to ensure that Democrats win up and down the ballot before introducing Munroe to cheers.

Munroe would go on to win by 1,100 votes, one of the key wins that preserved House Democrats’ majority. He told Spotlight PA he thinks there were a number of reasons he came out on top — but having Shapiro in his corner definitely didn’t hurt.

When Munroe was knocking doors in the weeks leading up to the election, he got a strong sense of the governor’s broad appeal.

“I met a significant number of Republicans who said when (Shapiro) was in the running for vice president, they would have loved to see him in the role,” Munroe said.

Of complaints that Shapiro could have done more, Bonder said, “While I understand that some people in politics level bad faith criticisms in order to see their names in the paper, the reality is no one in this commonwealth worked harder than Gov. Josh Shapiro this fall to show up, raise money, film ads, and support and elect candidates who will protect real freedom and get stuff done.”

Jeff Coleman, a Republican operative, argued that Shapiro’s national visibility gave his donors exactly what they wanted: They wrote checks because they believe in his long-term political prospects.

“When you are writing a check to Gov. Shapiro, you are writing it to whatever the next chapter looks like,” Coleman said. “You are writing a check with the hope you are going to be part of history. That’s the type of brand his team built.”

Consultants also noted that the big cash reserve Shapiro has could allow him to put dollars into next year’s judicial retention elections, during which three justices elected as Democrats will run for new 10-year terms.

Kate Huangpu of Spotlight PA contributed reporting for this story.

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Originally Published: December 16, 2024 at 12:00 AM EST