Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is managing a moment no politician ever wants to confront — and earning serious praise from Republicans and Democrats for his public presence and private communication.
After receiving initial briefings about the assassination attempt that left one rallygoer dead and injured former President Donald Trump and two others Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, Shapiro, a Democrat, spent the next 24 hours steadily releasing information to the public as he gathered intelligence from law enforcement and worked the phones, calling Republican members of Congress present at the rally, President Joe Biden and Trump’s campaign.
The most important call he made, however, was to the family of Corey Comperatore, the Trump supporter who was shot and killed. Comperatore’s family, which declined to take a call from Biden, allowed Shapiro to break the news publicly of his death and to tell his story to the nation when Shapiro visited the site of the shooting less than a day later. A Shapiro administration official said the governor thought it was “critically important” to speak with the families of the victims before speaking publicly.
“Corey was a girl dad. Corey was a firefighter. Corey went to church every Sunday. Corey loved his community,” Shapiro said. “And most especially, Corey loved his family.”
He added that Comperatore’s family detailed that he dove on top of them to protect them from the gunfire.
“Corey died a hero,” Shapiro said.
For a Democratic rising star — one often mentioned as a future presidential candidate or even someone who could step onto a ticket this year amid questions about whether Biden would step aside this summer — the attempted assassination of Trump has been the biggest moment and the toughest national test of his career.
So far, Democrats and Republicans have praised his handling of the tragedy.
Dave McCormick, the GOP nominee for Senate, who was seated in the front row at Trump’s Saturday rally, tweeted a photo of him and Shapiro meeting on Tuesday, adding he was “grateful” to Shapiro “for his strength and leadership following the tragedy in Butler on Saturday.” Speaking with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., said he appreciated hearing from Shapiro “immediately” as he was leaving the rally, adding that Shapiro asked, “‘Hey, what happened? What can we do? Are we — do we have enough state troopers?’”
On the floor of the GOP convention on Tuesday, Meuser said Shapiro “was on the job” and “it was a great conversation.”
“We’ve known each other for a while,” Meuser said. “We differ on policy and how to get from A to Z. But it was a good call he made and was appreciated.”
It was already a politically intense time for Shapiro. He’s helming Pennsylvania with a divided Legislature and as it emerges as the pivotal swing state in a presidential election. He is watching members of his own party push for the sitting president to step aside in the race — calls Shapiro hasn’t joined, standing by the president alongside officials in his state.
Now he is figuring out how to navigate a crisis involving the rival candidate, too.
“He sounds presidential,” one Pennsylvania Democrat said. “He is really good at striking the right tone in these situations and calling out the right people.”
“This is a make-or-break moment for Biden,” this Democrat added. “It’s a make-or-break moment for the United States. And it’s a make-or-break moment for Josh Shapiro. And he’s rising to the occasion.”
This person took particular note in that the reaction to Shapiro’s remarks, which haven’t been all that different from Biden’s, were received much better across the aisle than the president’s.
Shapiro called for all Americans “to take down the temperature” and “rise above the hateful rhetoric that exists.” And he called the assassination attempt “absolutely unacceptable and tragic.”
“We have to remember that even in these times, where there are real divisions, that we have to address those divisions through engagement and in a political and civic process in a peaceful manner,” the governor said. “That is incumbent upon all political leaders, all parties, and it is incumbent upon the public.”
Shapiro has managed to build a bipartisan brand in Pennsylvania, dating back to his time as state attorney general and a Montgomery County commissioner. In 2022, NBC News exit polls showed he won 16% of Republicans in his first run for governor when he defeated Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano. A Philadelphia Inquirer/New York Times/Siena College survey from May showed 42% of Pennsylvania Republicans approved of his handling of the job.
That level of credibility with Republicans has been helpful when trying to advance his agenda amid a divided government. But it’s been crucial when handling the aftermath of the attempted assassination.
“It’s huge,” GOP state Rep. Natalie Mihalek said of Shapiro’s standing with Republicans and Democrats alike. “We’re all looking to our leaders to help unify, not just Pennsylvania but America. I think this is a huge opportunity for somebody like Gov. Shapiro to go past partisanship.”
“There have been rumors for years that our governor has political ambitions beyond Pennsylvania,” added Mihalek, who represents the district where the Butler gunman lived. “And I can’t say whether or not that’s true. If it is, I’m sure that that is playing in the back of his mind, that we can’t afford to have any mistakes here — not just for his own political purposes, but really, this is such a significant moment in American history.”
Moving forward, Shapiro will continue to have a seat at the table as the investigation progresses. Shapiro has oversight of the Pennsylvania State Police, which was part of the law enforcement presence at Trump’s rally.
It’s not the first crisis the first-term governor has dealt with in less than two years on the job. Almost immediately upon taking office, there was the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, just across the border from Pennsylvania. Not long after, an I-95 overpass in Philadelphia collapsed, which he moved to quickly repair. But nothing compares to this.
“Governors can have years of pretty mundane policies, and then huge crises pop up,” said Jared Leopold, a former top official at the Democratic Governors Association. “He has dealt with it. … You either show up and show your command and show that you’re in charge, or you can wither and show that you’re not ready for the moment. And both in the highway collapse and in this … he’s stepped up. And he’s ready for the moment.”
State Rep. Ryan Bizzarro, a Democrat, said Shapiro repeatedly has had to “rise to the occasion” through crises.
“Everybody wants to take credit when things are going well, but when things aren’t going well, that’s when true leadership skills come through,” he said. “The governor has been out front and has done a very good job at, you know, calming Pennsylvanians and making the situation better.
It’s also not the first national tragedy Shapiro has confronted in his career. He was state attorney general in 2018 when a white nationalist opened fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 worshippers. Shapiro similarly rushed to the scene of the violence then. When he was inaugurated in 2023, Shapiro, who is Jewish, took his oath of office on a Hebrew Bible from the “Tree of Life” synagogue.
Bruce Castor, an attorney who served with Shapiro on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners and later represented Trump during his second impeachment trial, said he expected Shapiro to meet the moment.
“He’s a thinker, and a planner, and very difficult to ruffle,” Castor said. “And certainly, as good as an administrator as I’ve ever seen when we were commissioner-ing together. … This is not some far-left wing crank, he’s a guy who operates a little to the left of center, or to the right of center, and gets along very well with people who are a little bit to the right.”
Castor said he’s not alone among Republicans in his thinking,
“We don’t agree on policy stuff, but as a man, as an administrator, he’s really as good as it gets,” Castor said. “This is a guy who was trained his whole life for the job he currently holds, and maybe for a job beyond that.”
