Politics
In 2024, PA Gov. Shapiro will face demanding school funding challenges, prepare for presidential election
- In 2024, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro faces challenges in his second year leading Pennsylvania.
- Shapiro is pressured to address a court ruling declaring Pennsylvania’s public school funding system unconstitutional.
- His administration must also oversee a presidential election.
In 2024, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro could face a more complicated sophomore year in charge of Pennsylvania after his first year brought a highway collapse, a budget stalemate and friction with allies and adversaries as he navigated the battleground state’s political divides.
He is under pressure to respond to a court ruling that Pennsylvania’s system of public school funding unconstitutionally discriminates against poorer districts.
His administration must also oversee a presidential election that, four years ago, was marred by a barrage of right-wing conspiracy theories, Donald Trump-allied efforts in court to overturn it and threats against election administrators.
PA GOV. SHAPIRO SIGNS OFF ON BILL EXPANDING DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS FOR STATE-FUNDED UNIVERSITIES
And Shapiro, viewed nationally as a rising political star, must navigate the nation’s only politically divided legislature in which allies and adversaries alike are wary of him.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in his office in the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., on Dec. 20, 2023. In response to calls for increased funding for poor public schools, Shapiro may need to compromise, potentially accepting a new $100 million taxpayer-paid voucher program for private and religious schools. (AP Photo/Daniel Shanken)
In his first year in office, Shapiro showed himself to be a low-key operator who took a hands-off approach in the statehouse and attempted to avoid political fights he might not win.
He often emphasized the need to gain approval from both the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate, and focused more on what his administration accomplished — what he called a “get stuff done” administration — rather than farther-reaching agenda items that are stuck in partisan stalemate.
In 2024, Shapiro will have little runway to show how he’ll handle calls from public school advocates to propose billions of new dollars for the poorest public schools.
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“I’m very mindful of the Commonwealth Court decision and that we need to have more equity in our system. I’m also very mindful that someone has to pay for that,” Shapiro told The Associated Press in a recent interview in his office.
A compromise deal may require Democrats to accept something they just defeated: a new $100 million taxpayer-paid voucher program to subsidize tuition at private and religious schools.
Republican lawmakers are wary of ramping up public-school spending by billions of dollars. But they are in step with Shapiro in pushing for a voucher program — a position that made Shapiro unique among Democratic governors in the U.S.
In the fall, Shapiro’s administration will be nationally watched for how it runs the presidential election, when Pennsylvania is yet again expected to be pivotal to the White House stakes.
The state remains in Trump’s crosshairs after he and Republican allies tried to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory there and Trump declared that ” bad things ” happen in Philadelphia.
Last month in Iowa, Trump told supporters to “guard the vote” and to “go into” Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta to “watch those votes when they come in.”
Shapiro — who as attorney general played a central role in defending Pennsylvania’s 2020 election against Republican efforts in court to overturn it — said administration officials have been meeting for months.
They are preparing on legal, law enforcement and election administration fronts “to administer an election that everyone, regardless of your choice of candidate, can have faith in,” Shapiro told AP. “That is one of our most serious responsibilities.”
The election is likely to be close.
Complicating it is a state law that prohibits counties from processing mail-in ballots before Election Day — raising the specter of another drawn-out count in Pennsylvania like the one in 2020 that gave a window to Trump-inspired conspiracy theories and false claims.
Nearly every other state allows mail-in ballots to be processed before Election Day. In Pennsylvania, Republican lawmakers have refused to allow it without attaching other election-related changes that Democrats oppose.
For his part, Shapiro’s administration ably responded to the collapse of a critical section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia and the derailment of tanker cars carrying toxic chemicals just over the Ohio-Pennsylvania state border.
Still, getting deals in the statehouse wasn’t necessarily Shapiro’s strong suit.
A budget deal Shapiro struck with Republican lawmakers ran into solid opposition from Democrats. Shapiro then angered Republicans when he backed off it, precipitating a stalemate over spending that normally gets done in June.
Lawmakers and Shapiro last month wrapped up the last loose ends by greatly expanding subsidies for child care and private schools, among other things.
But Shapiro’s hands-off approach in the statehouse drew complaints from both sides. Shapiro chalks up such complaints to finger-pointing over partisan food fights.
“I don’t run the Legislature, right?” Shapiro told reporters at a news conference last month. “I mean, we are separate branches of this government. … Our Legislature has to figure out how to show up to work and then they’ve got to figure out how to work together.”
DEM PENNSYLVANIA GOV. SHAPIRO BLASTED OVER HANDLING OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT ALLEGATIONS
He will enter 2024 as the only governor in the U.S. with a politically divided Legislature after a Democratic victory in Virginia’s House.
Even so, for Shapiro, it may be a benefit: House Democrats block Republican bills that Shapiro might otherwise veto, while Senate Republicans block Democratic bills that are too progressive for Shapiro’s political instincts.
Shapiro brushes off that suggestion.
“I’m kind of dealing with the cards I’ve been dealt,” Shapiro told the AP. “I’ve just really focused on finding those areas where I can find common ground between the two leaders, right, in the Senate and the House, and see where we can find those points of intersection that allow me to put something forward that we can accomplish.”
Platner delivers primary victory speech
Graham Platner delivered a speech Tuesday acknowledging past shortcomings and criticizing incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins. (Credit: Matthew Symons for Fox News Digital)
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Senate Republicans are warning that scandal-plagued oysterman Graham Platner could still defeat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, if the party fails to take the race seriously.
Republicans are defending several seats in expectedly close races, including Nebraska, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, while seeking to flip Georgia. Maine is different: Sen. Susan Collins’ seat is the only Republican-held Senate seat in a state won by Kamala Harris in 2024, making it Democrats’ most direct path to returning Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to the majority leader’s office, Republicans said in a memo circulated Wednesday.
“It is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) memo obtained by Fox News — addressed to “Interested Parties” — read.
The NRSC agreed that Maine is the “linchpin” of the 35 seats up this year and that despite Platner’s Nazi tattoo, allegations of misogynist violence, arousal from biocide in port-a-johns, and his socialist policy platform, he remains a credible threat to the middle-of-the-road Collins.
SEE IT: MAINE VOTERS SOUND OFF ON PLATNER’S DIVISIVE CAMPAIGN AS CRUCIAL PRIMARY NEARS: ‘HE’S A DISGRACE’
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner stood together during a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour stop at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus on May 24, 2026, in Orono, Maine. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“Senator Collins has won tough races before and can win this one, but only if we meet this moment with total urgency,” the NRSC said.
“Because Democrats cannot win the majority without [Collins’ seat], they have fully rallied around Graham Platner, an extremely flawed, far-left candidate who secured the nomination last night. Platner has captured his party’s financial backing, outraising Senator Collins in every quarter since entering the race. We must match both the energy and the money to retain the seat,” the memo said.
The NRSC said Democrats don’t view Platner’s race as being about the flawed candidate but rather about usurping power.
COLLINS SECURES GOP NOD IN MAINE SENATE BATTLE THAT COULD DECIDE GOP MAJORITY
The committee said any one of Platner’s multiple scandals would have ended most campaigns, but Democrats remain united around him. The NRSC reported that after former girlfriend Lyndsey Fifield’s allegations against Platner broke, Platner raised $200,000 in one day in what the campaign said was its best haul of the cycle.
“The political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging, and it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win,” the NRSC said.
Collins is the last remaining federal Republican in New England and the only Republican in the Senate north or east of Pennsylvania.
The NRSC reported that Platner is beating Harris’ own margins by seven points while noting Collins has won tough races in the past, but this one is different.
Collins won her last race against former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon by about eight points, and her last electoral loss was way back in 1994 when now-Sen. Angus King Jr., I-Maine, won the governorship in a four-way contest.
Republicans said in the memo that the biggest story in the past week about Platner is not his latest scandal, but the fact that Democrats are circling the wagons around him even more tightly and “propping him up.”
WATCH: DEM SENATORS EXCUSE PLATNER’S CONDUCT AT CRISIS HUDDLE WITH EMBATTLED MAINE CANDIDATE
Graham Platner addresses the crowd at his watch party after winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate at a YMCA in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9, 2026. Platner will face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the election for the seat. (Matthew Symons for Fox News Digital)
They cited Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna visiting Maine to hold a gushy interview-slash-ad with Platner and the fact that Democrats keep claiming Collins and Trump are worse than the left-winger.
“Gotta do what you gotta do,” the NRSC quoted former Biden deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty, while noting that Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse publicly claimed Platner’s foibles are a “lot of nothing.”
They also pointed to one of the most influential Democratic operatives claiming that Platner’s flaws actually bolster his qualifications.
Platner had disparaged former Pennsylvania lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Teddy Daniels after video of the Purple Heart recipient being besieged and gravely wounded by the Taliban surfaced several years ago.
“We’ve got a f—ed up guy who could be 100 times more f—ed up than he is and he’d never be as f—ed up as what we’ve got in Washington,” said 1992 Bill Clinton campaign architect James Carville, who suggested that Platner’s apparent PTSD should be a symbol on the Hill as to why neoconservatives have been wrong about war powers.
“This is not a party abandoning its nominee. This is a party rationalizing, accepting, and preparing to fight,” the NRSC said.
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“Republicans need to match that urgency immediately. Define Platner. Defend Collins. Resource Maine,” they said. “Senator Collins has proven time and time again, through her work ethic and commitment to the people of Maine and America, that she will prevail.”
“This race can be won, but it will not win itself.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the NRSC, DSCC, Platner campaign and Collins campaign for further comment.
Supporters of a new Los Angeles County half-cent sales tax rallied Wednesday to celebrate what they framed as a historic win for the region’s cash-strapped healthcare system.
After a rocky election night that showed the tax lagging, supporters claimed victory Tuesday after the latest vote tally pushed Measure ER further over the 50% margin needed to pass. The measure would impose a new half-cent sales tax countywide, with the proceeds going toward local hospitals and clinics hit by federal funding cuts.
Jim Mangia, the chief executive of St. John’s Community Health who helped craft the measure, summed up the campaign as “grueling and expensive.”
“We had to ask an already overtaxed community — in the midst of runaway inflation and [an] affordability crisis — to tax themselves yet again,” he told a crowd of supporters Wednesday.
L.A. County already has a sales tax of 9.75%, and some cities add their own on top. Measure ER passing would raise the countywide sales tax to 10.25%, with some individual cities having a sales tax of more than 11%, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.
Despite a recent winning streak for sales taxes in L.A. County, some political observers had forecast doom for the measure, which came at a time of skyrocketing gas prices and cost-weary voters.
The largely informal opposition had consisted mainly of local cities that warned another sales tax would disproportionately burden the poorest residents and force shoppers across the county border in hopes of finding lower costs. Some city leaders had also dinged the county for misusing homelessness money generated from a previous sales tax and argued this new pot of dollars would be handled no better.
But supporters were able to eke out a narrow victory, according to the latest election returns, by emphasizing looming hospital closures and the temporary nature of the tax, which is set to sunset in five years.
“It’s a lifesaver to carry us through the storm we’re all in,” said county Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who led the push within the Board of Supervisors to get the measure on the ballot.
County leaders in February voted 4-1 to put the tax on the ballot after federal legislation threatened to pull health insurance from the poorest residents, leaving the already cash-strapped county to foot the bill for their care. Officials say cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are expected to slash more than $2 billion from the county’s budget for health services over the next three years.
“It’s disgusting what’s going to happen to our residents,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, who championed the measure alongside Mitchell.
The tax, which begins Oct. 1, comes at a time of budget-tightening for the county amid rising labor costs and a $4-billion sex abuse settlement that is set to be paid out over the next five years.
Officials estimate the tax will bring in about $1 billion per year, which will go to clinics, hospitals and Planned Parenthood services that supporters say are at risk of closure without a new source of cash.
A similar proposed healthcare sales tax in Contra Costa County, meant to generate $150 million a year, was soundly rejected with about 57% of voters opposing the measure, according to votes tallied as of Wednesday.
By Hamed Aleaziz, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, Jon Hazell, Gilad Thaler, Stephanie Swart and Rafaela Balster
June 10, 2026
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