ERIE, Pennsylvania — In the last week of October, fall foliage in Pennsylvania's Appalachian Mountains reached its peak, with native hardwoods and understory trees ablaze in red, orange, yellow, and purple. A Democratic governor cruising to reelection had no obvious reason to travel through these rural counties, but Josh Shapiro went anyway. A lodge in coal country was one stop on a bus tour that took him and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis through 29 counties in the campaign's final 10 days. Fourteen of those counties voted against him in 2022.

The tour started in Erie and ran through college campuses, union halls, a diner, and a Steelers watch party. It went into Milford, in Pike County, which President Donald Trump carried by 24 points in 2024. Shapiro told me throughout his reelection campaign, which began in earnest in January, that his theory of politics is about place: "Show up, especially in communities that didn't vote for you."

Most of the people who came out to see him when I joined him on the bus in Beaver County were already Democrats. But the tour was never really about Shapiro, who beat state Treasurer Stacy Garrity 60.4 percent to 38.3 percent. In Doylestown, he never mentioned Garrity. Instead, he promoted local candidates for state office wherever he went and promised that the first bill he would sign would raise the minimum wage.

Shapiro had done more than show up. He built a coordinated campaign that shared money with down-ballot Democrats. "This governor and this lieutenant governor put it all on the line," said Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes.

It........

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