LOCK HAVEN, Pa. — Several days a week, you can find Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro behind a podium.

From a one stoplight town to a multibillion-dollar development in one of the state's metropolitan centers, to a trip last week to Lock Haven — a small city tucked in a valley of Bald Eagle Mountain — Shapiro has spent his first two years in office traveling across Pennsylvania to talk about his policy wins and fulfill a promise he made on the campaign trail: to keep showing up.

In Lock Haven, Shapiro, 51, strode confidently to the lectern emblazoned with his administration's motto: "Getting stuff done." He wore a bomber jacket detailed with the 48th governor of Pennsylvania insignia, and flashed his signature smile as he made his usual joke about having to take questions from the media after the news conference celebrating state funding to hire more than 1,500 police officers statewide, including two additional officers in Lock Haven.

"I made a commitment to do this on the campaign trail, and we're making good on that commitment to the good people of Pennsylvania," Shapiro said.

Shapiro, a Democrat from Abington Township now halfway through his first term leading the nation's fifth-most-populous state, spent his first two years taking on perennial issues in Pennsylvania, such as the state's unconstitutional funding system for public education, stagnating higher education institutions, and a long-sought increase to the state's property tax and rent rebate program for seniors.

But his time as a major swing-state governor — and rumored national ambitions — thrust him into the national spotlight last year as a front-runner to be Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate ahead of the presidential election. And his first two years leading Pennsylvania have come with challenges; he is one of few governors in the country with a GOP-controlled Senate and a narrow Democratic majority in the state House, requiring both parties to agree on any legislation. He will face the same legislative makeup in the second half of his term, just as he gears up for his reelection campaign in 2026.

"I'm only two years in," Shapiro said in an interview last week. "I'm hungrier than ever. We've got more ideas than ever, and we know that we can work with Democrats and Republicans alike to advance our commonsense agenda."

And only two years in, Shapiro's biggest tests as a dealmaker are yet to come.

This summer, he will need to negotiate a state budget with leaders in the split legislature, with spending set to outpace revenue by $4.5 billion, according to projections from the Independent Fiscal Office. Pennsylvania need to lean on a previous budget surplus and remaining federal COVID-19 relief savings in the Rainy Day Fund — which will be empty by 2027-28 if spending and revenue keep at the same rate.

He will need to manage his sometimes strained relationships with a GOP Senate, and navigate working with President Donald Trump's new administration to ensure Pennsylvania gets all of its federal funding it relies on — approximately half of the state's spending each year.

All the while, Shapiro, who boasts continually high approval ratings, will need to convince voters he should be reelected as governor in 2026, as Republicans strategize to put up a stronger candidate against him. (Shapiro has not yet formally announced his reelection bid.)

A $4.5 billion shortfall and a booming Rainy Day Fund

Pennsylvania is on track to spend nearly $49.8 billion in the next fiscal year, but bring in only $45.1 billion — producing a shortfall, with budgetary adjustments, of $4.5 billion. That deficit is on track to continue to grow through the 2029-30 fiscal year to more than $6.6 billion, if spending continues to outpace the revenue the state brings in each year.

So leaders need to find new revenue generators, cut spending in order to bridge the gap, or tap into the more than $7 billion still in the state's Rainy Day Fund — as Democrats want to do — as an investment in the state's economic growth.

Just as he did in last year's budget pitch, Shapiro said he will again propose at his budget address early next month that the state legalize recreational marijuana and regulate skill games as new tax opportunities. Shapiro proposed last year that setting the state tax on adult-use cannabis sales at 20% would bring in an estimated $14.8 million. Last week, he noted that all of Pennsylvania's surrounding states except West Virginia have already legalized recreational marijuana, and are benefiting from Pennsylvanians traveling to their states to buy it. By taxing skill games, Shapiro estimated last year that the gambling doppelgängers would bring in more than $150 million in the levy's first year.

The creation of new revenue generators would be a major win for Shapiro and a credit to his dealmaking skills, but would likely require major compromise from him and House Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) said there is still not broad support for legalizing recreational marijuana among Senate Republicans. However, this year, it looks more promising that GOP senators will support regulating skill games in budget negotiations. Pittman recently authored a cosponsorship memo detailing his intention to introduce legislation to regulate skill games, which are slot machine look-alikes that have proliferated in bars and convenience stores around the state without any state regulation or taxation. Senate Republicans have talked about regulating the machines for years but have not advanced legislation to do so.

Shapiro will also propose that the state tap into its savings to make up the difference between revenue and spending, as leaders agreed to do in the 2024-25 state budget. However, Pittman said Republicans won't be willing to dip into those savings again this year.

"There's this fixation on the fund balance and this belief that we have infinite pots of money to be all things to all people, and it's just not the case," Pittman said. "At the end of the day, the budget that we enacted last year was a solid product. ... But I will be the first to say that we can't repeat that type of increase year over year, or we're going to have a real problem in a few short years."

Shapiro said he hopes to sway them.

"When you look at what I'm going to propose, and when you look at hopefully being able to get those two new revenue sources, we are on pace to continue to have strong budgets, balanced budgets, and live within our means," he said.

Shapiro and other Democrats, for their part, do not agree that there is a budget shortfall due to the surplus of available funds elsewhere, and believe the state should invest some of its savings back into state programs to encourage economic growth that they say would translate into more revenue earnings.

"I would argue, from a fiscal standpoint, this is the strongest the commonwealth has been in probably over a decade," said House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery). "But I would concede that, long-term, we must grow this economy."

Challenging relationships

While Shapiro's national profile skyrocketed last year, one rare misstep in his first year as governor continues to haunt him.

Shapiro, who said on the campaign trail that he would support school vouchers for students in low-performing schools, negotiated a deal in his first budget with Senate Republicans to create such a program. But when he approached House Democrats, who hold a one-seat majority, they refused the deal. To avoid a lengthy budget impasse, Shapiro line-item vetoed the voucher program he helped create and pledged to work on the issue in the future, leaving some GOP senators feeling blindsided.

The about-face "still stings within our caucus," Pittman said. "That has continued to be an obstacle in moving forward on some other bigger issues, just because of the trust factor that has come along with that."

But the move hurt no one more than President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland), the top Republican in the Senate, who saw Shapiro's decision to undo the long-sought Republican priority as a betrayal and the beginning of a splintered relationship between the two top politicians.

"Throughout my tenure in the Senate, I have had productive working relationships with Governors Rendell, Corbett, and Wolf," Ward said in a statement.

"Particularly, I enjoyed my relationship with Gov. Wolf," Ward added, though she frequently attacked Wolf, Shapiro's Democratic predecessor, during his tenure for his approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. "When Gov. Wolf gave me his word it meant something, and we were able to compromise and actually 'get stuff done.' ... I don't have that type of relationship with Gov. Shapiro."

In addition to his state-level conflicts, Shapiro will need to navigate a new relationship with Trump. He served as a foil to Trump in his first term, when Shapiro was Pennsylvania's attorney general. He often joined other Democratic attorneys general in suing the Trump administration, and boasts more than 40 courtroom wins over Trump during the 2020 election, when Trump tried to overturn the state's results.

New Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican, has said he would take a conservative approach to his job, but it's still undetermined how frequently he will litigate national policies. As chief executive of Pennsylvania, Shapiro has pledged to work with Trump when it will help the state — which proved key to Trump's second victory — and stand up to him if his policies will hurt Pennsylvanians.

'Getting stuff done'

Shapiro has committed himself to "getting stuff done" — or "getting s— done," depending on the crowd — in his first two years. He has boasted major legislative wins passed by the General Assembly, including $1.5 billion in education funding increases, a new public education funding system intended to more equitably fund schools no matter their property tax abilities, and creating a state tax deduction of $2,500 on student loan interest.

He has also set out a 10-year economic development strategy and has taken a number of executive actions to improve state government's customer service for business owners and employees by cutting wait times and backlogs for permits and certifications, such as turning around cosmetology and barbershop licenses in the same day instead of two weeks, or certifying teachers in two weeks instead of 12 weeks. He still gets credit nationally for his 12-day rebuild of a collapsed part of I-95 in Philadelphia in June 2023 that would otherwise have taken months to reopen, and brags about Pennsylvania repairing more roads and bridges than any other state last year.

"I'm just proud that we were able, in a divided legislature, to bring Democrats and Republicans together to solve some of these problems that folks have been talking about in the Capitol for 20, 30, 40 years," Shapiro said. "We've made great strides in a really challenging political environment, and we're going to keep working at it."

Pittman described the governor's first two years as "tumultuous" — marked by his budget blunder over school vouchers and his handling of sexual harassment allegations against a former top aide — but credited Shapiro for his talents as a politician and public servant and for where they have been able to make compromises.

Shapiro's detractors say he has not been productive as governor, having signed among the fewest number of bills (217 laws for the 2023-24 two-year legislative session) of any Pennsylvania governor in the last two decades.

Ward, the top Republican in the state Senate, who is frequently at odds with the governor, said in a statement that she hopes Shapiro's "getting stuff done" motto this year "is more productive than the first two," asserting that his national ambitions have gotten in the way of taking on major issues in the state.

"That will require the governor to stop riding down the middle of the road and pick a lane when it comes to making decisions on the big issues facing Pennsylvania," added Ward, who has been critical of Shapiro for his hands-off approach to the potential sale of Pittsburgh's U.S. Steel and his decision to try to keep Pennsylvania in the regional greenhouse gas initiative, among other issues.

Bradford, the House majority leader, however, said Shapiro's willingness to work across the aisle is why he has risen to the national stage as an effective leader.

"Everyone can see what a lot of us in Montgomery County already know, that he's highly effective, he's very efficient, and he works long hours," Bradford said. "He's been able to bridge the partisan divide where necessary, which is an accomplishment demonstrated by the fact that 18 months into office that he was already rumored for national office."

Shapiro noted his good working relationships with Bradford and Pittman, who are the main negotiators at the table in budget talks— a sentiment both leaders echoed. And he said he hopes the goodwill continues into 2025.

"We know how to work together to help give each side some wins and, most importantly, give Pennsylvania a big win," Shapiro said.

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