The lone debate in this year’s Pennsylvania governor’s race took place last Wednesday night at an ABC27 television studio in Harrisburg. Lacking any real explosive moments, the hour produced a rather amicable exchange of views between incumbent Democrat Josh Shapiro and his Republican challenger, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. All polls have shown Shapiro to have an almost insurmountable lead among likely voters, so the debate was likely Garrity’s lone opportunity to reverse the current trend and build any momentum into election day. While her performance showed she could go blow-for-blow against the well-polished Shapiro, Garrity’s debate performance likely went unnoticed by most voters, according to J. Wesley Leckrone, professor and chair of the Political Science Department at Widener University. “I don’t think anybody even knew the debate was (on),” he told The SPIRIT. “I don’t think the debate will move the needle either way in this race.” Leckrone said he was pleased by the way the debate unfolded given the contemporary political climate. What he observed was a respectful exchange of ideas that lacked any name-calling. “I really felt like they kind of stuck to the talking points,” he added. “Most of the disagreements seem to be on policy, so it was an interesting perspective, given the way a lot of these debates seem to go at the national level. They may not have given all the best answers or really answered all the questions, but at least it was not a shouting match and one person talking over the other.”
Many analysts said the debate had no clear winner, with some online reader polls even giving Garrity a slight edge in performance. But a draw in this case is a win for the Shapiro campaign, Leckrone observed. “There were no unforced errors in this debate,” he said. “If you can get away with no enforced errors, sometimes that’s good enough, particularly if you are Shapiro and you’re in the lead by 25 points.”
Garrity’s performance didn’t lead to any notable soundbites that could alter the course of the election, but she did strike a few blows when Shapiro attempted to position himself as a moderate, Leckrone observed…