Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who openly embraced his Jewish faith on the campaign trail, is projected to have won the state’s race for governor against the Republican candidate Doug Mastriano.
A win for Shapiro, who is currently the state’s attorney general, makes him the state’s first Jewish governor since Milton Shapp in the 1970s. Shapiro launched his campaign with ads that referenced his Shabbat observance and sends his children to Jewish day school.
The race was closely watched because of the messaging from the Donald Trump-endorsed Mastriano.
Mastriano’s campaign amassed several other Jewish-themed controversial moments. He attacked the Jewish day school that Shapiro sends his children to, calling it “elite” without specifying it was Jewish; one of his advisers called Shapiro “at best a secular Jew”; and his wife told an Israeli reporter they “probably” love Israel “more than a lot of Jews do.” Prior to his running for governor, Mastriano also funded and acted in a Holocaust movie with heavily right-wing overtones.
His campaign continued to turn heads in its closing hours, when his final stop ended with a Messianic Jew serenading him with a parody of a “Fiddler On The Roof” song.