PITTSBURGH — Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) sauntered into a Republican-heavy energy summit in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday and preached a unity message alongside Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA).
“When I sit down with my colleagues in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, House or Senate, what I’m always trying to do is find the areas where we can actually agree, and then build up on that,” Shapiro said at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, which McCormick organized at Carnegie Mellon University. “We’re finding common ground on energy.”
Shapiro said he spent two years as the only governor in the country with a divided state legislature, so any bill that got to his desk had to have bipartisan support.
That was the overarching theme of “Investing Big in Pennsylvania: A Case Study,” a panel discussion featuring Shapiro, McCormick, Dr. Neeli Bendapudi, the president of Pennsylvania State University, and Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman.
Pennsylvania has become a key swing state during recent presidential elections. President Donald Trump won it en route to a shocking upset victory in 2016, narrowly lost it four years later, and won it back last fall to retake the White House.
Its statewide leadership reflects that balance. McCormick ousted three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey last fall, while Pennsylvania’s other senator, John Fetterman, is a Democrat who has flirted with the MAGA movement since taking office in 2023.
During the panel discussion, McCormick was happy to advance the unity theme as well.
“I want to come to a place that has all those ingredients and has uniform political leadership,” he said. “The governor [Shapiro] and I are from different parties. We have plenty of differences, but on this we agree. Senator Fetterman was at dinner last night. On this, we agreed.”
Shapiro was a rumored vice presidential candidate last year, though former Vice President Kamala Harris ultimately looked elsewhere. Some believe he could be gearing up for a run at the White House in three years.
Much of Trump’s Cabinet was on hand for the summit, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, along with Trump. However, Shapiro sidestepped criticism of the Trump administration during his appearance.
Instead, he emphasized the importance of creating jobs for the 62% of Keystone State residents without a college degree and winning the technology innovation race.
“This is a global race for both energy dominance and AI dominance,” Shapiro said. “We do not want China to beat us in this AI race.”
The word “bipartisan” was mentioned seven times during the discussion, and Garman even said he was on a “tripartisan” panel, adding the commercial sector to the two major political parties.
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Shapiro emphasized that voters win when the two parties work together.
“We brought together a bipartisan group of lawmakers to put more than a billion dollars of new funding into economic development,” he said. “So we’ve got some tools now to get these deals done.”