Shapiro Stumps for Wallace, Deatrich in Saint Clair Five Days Before Election

Gov. Josh Shapiro brought his reelection bus tour to Saint Clair on Thursday, asking Schuylkill County Democrats to help send Rachel Wallace to Congress and John Deatrich to Harrisburg.

Shapiro and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis headlined a morning rally at Saint Clair Fish & Game, five days ahead of the Nov. 3 General Election. Wallace, Deatrich, and County Commissioner Gary Hess also spoke. A little more than 100 people attended, according to Shapiro’s campaign staff.

Wallace, a Democrat from Pottsville, is challenging U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican seeking a fifth term in the 9th Congressional District. Deatrich, a Democrat, is running against Republican state Rep. Tim Twardzik in the 123rd Legislative District.

Shapiro and Davis face Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity and her running mate, Jason Richey. Libertarian Ken Krawchuk and his running mate, John Thomas, are also on the ballot.

Wallace held a separate campaign town hall Thursday evening at Pottsville Fire Co. No. 1, at Laurel Boulevard and Third Street.

In a statement to Coal Region Canary on Friday, Meuser accused Shapiro of lying about the effects of the federal tax law Meuser supported. He also said he will take legal action against Wallace after the election.

Shapiro told the Saint Clair crowd he came because the county’s Democrats matter. He said he knows how hard it is to be a Democrat here.

Neither Shapiro nor Davis mentioned their opponents in the race for governor and lieutenant governor. Shapiro spent his speech on President Donald Trump and what he called the chaos, cruelty, and corruption coming out of Washington, D.C.

Shapiro said a farmer told him a day earlier that it costs $6.50 a gallon to fill up his truck. He blamed the war in Iran, which he said has added about $1,000 to what families pay to fill their cars and heat their homes. He also blamed tariffs, which he said cost every Pennsylvania family about $2,100. Shapiro called the two together a $3,100 “chaos tax.”

He also pointed to the measles outbreak. Shapiro said the disease was eliminated in the United States in 2000 and has come back because of misinformation and disinformation.

“These guys [are] playing with our public health like it’s some game,” he said.

Shapiro said about 1,500 Pennsylvanians have contracted measles and six families have lost a loved one. The state Department of Health has confirmed 1,398 measles cases in 44 counties so far this year, along with five measles-associated deaths, according to its Wednesday update. A sixth reported death, in Franklin County, is under review.

Shapiro then turned to Meuser, calling him “one of the most spineless people I know in politics.”

He said Meuser went along with Trump on a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. Shapiro said it was paid for by cutting health care for 510,000 Pennsylvanians, including more than 10,000 people in Schuylkill County, and food assistance for 143,000.

“That’s cruel. It’s also incompetent,” Shapiro said.

In his statement Friday, Meuser said criticizing him “for supporting tax relief on Social Security, overtime pay, tips, small businesses and working families is just stupid.” He said Shapiro is lying about cuts to health insurance and food assistance.

Meuser said Shapiro calling him “spineless” is projection, and that Shapiro is known in Harrisburg as “Jellyfish Josh.”

“The examples of this are endless. Take his flip-flop on school choice: in his debate, he acted like he had no authority on anything and placed all responsibility on the legislature. Yet when it comes to allowing the education freedom tax credit to take effect in Pennsylvania, he won’t stand up to the special interest groups he has been bought out by,” Meuser said.

Shapiro also claimed credit for stopping the federal government’s plan to turn the former Big Lots distribution center in Tremont Township into an immigration detention center.

“When ICE went and bought those buildings down the road, I went there. I saw it with my own eyes. I got on the phone. I fought back,” he said.

The federal government bought the Tremont Township warehouse for about $119.5 million in January, taking it off the local tax rolls. ICE later told the state it would not use the Tremont warehouse, or a second one it bought in Upper Bern Township, Berks County, as detention centers. The federal government is now trying to sell both. The County, Tremont Township, and Pine Grove Area School District have never received a payment in lieu of taxes, despite verbal assurances.

Shapiro said he also took Trump to court over an executive order on elections and won.

He asked the crowd to talk with neighbors who voted the other way in recent elections, the people they sit next to in church or stand behind in the checkout line. He told them to do it without lecturing.

“Don’t talk to them with judgment in your voice or in your heart,” Shapiro said. “Now’s the time to tell them that we welcome them in our coalition.”

Davis, who introduced Shapiro, said the two have spent four years “laser focused on doing what he likes to call getting shit done for working families here in Pennsylvania.”

He said they have cut taxes 10 times and created the Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit. He said they also expanded the child care tax credit and the Property Tax/Rent Rebate program and put more than 2,000 new police officers on the street.

Davis said a Democratic trifecta, with control of the governor’s office and both chambers of the General Assembly, would mean raising the minimum wage to $15, codifying reproductive rights, and passing Shapiro’s housing action plan. He said the last trifecta came in 1992.

He said a Democratic win would put “a check on Donald Trump’s chaos” and make Trump “a lame duck president.”

“I recognize it’s not easy being a Democrat in Schuylkill County, but we don’t win big races because of big cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,” Davis said. “We win them because we close the margins in places like Schuylkill.”

Hess, the board’s minority commissioner and the highest-ranking Democratic officeholder in the county, also spoke. A former Schuylkill Haven mayor, he said Shapiro “never forgot about Schuylkill County” and that the governor’s office always returned his calls.

Hess said Shapiro called him personally after a tornado hit Mahanoy City.

“Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Hess said the governor asked.

Hess also credited Shapiro with fighting the ICE warehouse plan. He said Shapiro has backed residents on odor problems in the western end of the county and at the landfill near Saint Clair. Hess then introduced Wallace as “one of ours.”

Wallace Takes Aim at Meuser

Wallace built both of her Thursday appearances around Meuser and the cost of living.

She told the rally crowd she is a ninth-generation Pennsylvanian who was born and raised in Pottsville and graduated from Pottsville Area High School. Her first job out of college was with former U.S. Rep. Tim Holden of Saint Clair, which she said led her to the White House budget office. She said she and her husband moved home after her mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

“I saw how low the bar had gotten. You see it too,” Wallace said. “Someone who does not live in our district, who has never held a town hall in eight years in Congress, and who never shows up when we are at a moment where our part of Pennsylvania is feeling real pain.”

Wallace said home heating oil is up more than 70% from last year, in a district where she said about a third of homes heat with it. She blamed Meuser’s votes on the war in Iran for driving up energy costs.

“This is a crisis for our part of the state,” she said.

At her town hall, Wallace laid out what she would push for first if Democrats take the House in January. Reversing last year’s Medicaid cuts topped her list, because of what they mean for local nursing homes. Next would be ending the war in Iran and the tariffs, followed by a government accountability bill that includes a ban on congressional stock trading, then immigration reform.

She said she does not want the next Congress spent on impeachment.

“I will be very upset if I’m in Congress and we’re just talking about impeachment,” she said.

Wallace said Meuser has doubled his wealth since taking office and has a portfolio that outperformed Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

“I have some questions about that,” she said.

She said members of Congress and their spouses should not be allowed to trade individual stocks. Meuser has denied wrongdoing, saying at the Oct. 20 debate that a financial adviser handles his trades.

In his statement Friday, Meuser said Wallace is “doing everything she can to hide her past while spreading lies and slander, something I will address legally after the election.” He did not say which of her statements he was referring to.

Wallace, asked about Meuser’s statement, said her campaign is focused on the issues.

“I’ve been accessible to voters throughout this race, holding seven town halls just in the last month,” she said. “People don’t want distractions, they want answers for how we lower costs and take on corruption and fraud in Washington, and that’s what my campaign is focused on.”

On health care, Wallace said she is focused on what can realistically pass, rather than Medicare for All.

“I don’t want to tell you here’s what I’m going to fight for without feeling confident that it has a real shot of getting done in the next two to four years,” she said.

She said there should be no cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits. She said Congress should lift the cap on taxable income for higher earners.

Wallace also took on AI data centers at both events. At the rally, she said residents understand what it means when an elected official sides with data center developers.

“We know what it means when you stand with them. It means you’re not standing with us,” she said.

At the town hall, she said she supports a pause on data center development, though she doesn’t want to call it a moratorium. She said it would give Harrisburg time to revisit tax breaks and give municipalities time to get their ordinances in place. She said federal tax breaks for data center developers, which she said Meuser voted for, should be repealed, and that local union workers should build the projects.

“The bottom line here is that we should not be the ones who are asked to pay the cost, and right now we are,” she said.

On immigration, Wallace said ICE should go after people here illegally who commit violent crimes, not workers showing up at farms and meatpacking plants.

“I think ICE has a role to play. It is not the role that they’re playing right now,” she said.

She pointed to the fight over the Tremont warehouse as an example of the county pushing back.

“We made enough noise that they couldn’t ignore us,” Wallace said.

Speaking at a fire company, Wallace said volunteer firefighters need more federal help. She said that when she worked for Holden, fire companies regularly got $200,000 to $300,000 in federal money for new trucks. Today a truck costs more than $1 million, she said, and the federal grant pool for fire companies has not grown in 20 years.

“Let’s vastly grow that pot of money so that this isn’t a question, and we can give out way more grants,” she said.

Wallace also said too many downtown storefronts are owned by out-of-state landlords. She said people who live here should get incentives to buy them.

“If you’re a bad landlord and you go to church, somebody’s going to say something to you,” she said. “But if you’re a bad landlord and you live in New Jersey, nobody can say anything to you.”

Deatrich Pitches Himself as ‘the Middle Class’

Deatrich, a teacher and Palo Alto Mayor, said Shapiro and Davis need a legislator who understands education. His wife, Danielle, is a nurse at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. The couple has six children, one in the Air Force and five in college at the same time.

“They need someone in Harrisburg that feels the burden of the middle class, and I am the middle class,” Deatrich said. “My opponent is not, and he never was.”

“People need to stop electing politicians that are pretending to be regular people, and start electing regular people who want to be politicians,” he said.

Deatrich said he keeps hearing the same concerns from voters. One was a retired teacher in Butler Township worried about the environmental impact and costs of a data center near her home. Another was Saint Clair residents dealing with odors from the BRADS landfill, unanswered health questions, and truck traffic.

He called the landfill a “failing operation.”

“That is just putting profit over people, and that has to stop,” Deatrich said.

He said residents have shown up on those issues while their elected officials have not.

“Your elected officials were not; they were absent,” he said.

Deatrich did not mention that it was the Shapiro administration’s DEP that renewed the landfill’s operating permit in April, over objections from Saint Clair residents and local and County officials. The renewal allows BRADS to operate through January 2035. Saint Clair has appealed it to the state Environmental Hearing Board.

BRADS is also buying about 177 acres next to the landfill, north of Burma Road, from Reading Anthracite Co. and other co-owners. Landfill opponents believe the purchase means BRADS is planning to expand toward Saint Clair. A separate request to double the landfill’s daily intake from 1,500 to 3,000 tons is still under DEP review.

Deatrich said a supporter told him this is the strongest Democratic ticket he’s seen in over 30 years.

“We’re not trying to be your father’s Democratic Party. We’re trying to be your Democratic Party,” Deatrich said. He asked the crowd to vote a straight Democratic ticket.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated Oct. 30 to include a statement from U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser and a response from Rachel Wallace.

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