💪 Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is an electoral juggernaut in America's biggest swing state — and he's widely seen as a likely contender for president in 2028. But strategists in both parties are questioning how tested he really is.

• Shapiro's success — he's cruised to victory in multiple statewide races — has come with an asterisk: He hasn't faced a well-financed opponent in recent contests, leading some political insiders to see him as more of a wildcard than his resume suggests.

🤔 Why it matters: Shapiro's unfamiliarity with intense, bruising campaigns could become a liability in the 2028 Democratic primary, where if he was a top candidate, he'd be confronted with a barrage of attack ads, opposition research and rivals with deep pockets.

• A plugged-in Democratic operative in Pennsylvania suggested that because of Shapiro's lack of being tested, "it is totally possible that he has an incredible glass jaw — and that he is the Scott Walker of 2028."
• Walker was the swing-state Wisconsin governor who looked good on paper as a potential presidential candidate but flopped after entering the 2016 GOP primary.

Zoom in: In next week's election, Shapiro is running for a second four-year term as the Keystone State's governor. He's on pace to defeat Republican challenger Stacy Garrity by double digits, according to the latest polls.

• The money gap is gargantuan: Shapiro has dropped $42 million on campaign ads, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Garrity, the state's treasurer, has spent just $3 million on ads — a drop in the ocean in a state as large as Pennsylvania, with its expensive advertising markets.

• It's not that Garrity prefers, say, door-knocking to TV ads. She's just outmatched: Campaign finance reports show she's only raised about $11 million this cycle, compared with Shapiro's $64 million.
• Making matters worse for Garrity, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) has not come to her rescue on the airwaves.

⛸️ Christopher Nicholas, a longtime GOP strategist in Pennsylvania, said the dynamic has "allowed Shapiro to skate with essentially having a one-sided campaign."

• "A lot of people think he has a glass chin because he's never really had a million dollars of negative TV shoved down his throat in a week," Nicholas said.

Zoom out: Shapiro caught a break when he first ran for governor in 2022 against Republican Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator widely viewed as a historically weak candidate disliked even by the GOP establishment.

• Mastriano, who was strapped for cash, spent just $2 million on ads that year. Shapiro and his allies spent $55 million.
• A conservative outside group invested $8 million on advertising in the election but abandoned the race that September after Shapiro embraced school vouchers, a priority for many on the right. The RGA stayed out of the race.

In both of his gubernatorial contests, Shapiro has run unopposed in the Democratic primaries, leaving him with little experience of intra-party electoral battles.

• It was a similar story when Shapiro twice was elected as Pennsylvania's attorney general. He vastly outspent his Republican opponents.

🗣️ What they're saying: Shapiro's allies argue that he's had token opposition precisely because he's a formidable candidate — that more talented Republicans don't want to waste their time and money running against such a hard-to-beat opponent with big fundraising chops. The governor has also sometimes cut off his GOP rivals' money spigots by courting Republican donors.

• "Sun Tzu was always about picking the battle you want to fight," said Doc Sweitzer, a Pennsylvania Democratic ad maker. "Josh has an incredible skill of picking the opponents."
• Asked for comment, Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said: "Winning elections in Pennsylvania and putting a check on Donald Trump is the only thing we're focused on — and believe it or not, it's harder than sitting at home giving unnamed quotes to Axios."

Shapiro is far from the only potential Democratic presidential candidate who hasn't squared off against a top-notch statewide Republican candidate.

• Possible White House hopefuls from deep-blue territory — such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — or with little experience defeating Republicans statewide, like former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, have either never run in or never won remotely competitive general elections.

Read more.

— Holly Otterbein

Our weekly look at what potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders are up to:

• ✈️ Ocasio-Cortez barnstormed the country in a trip that seemed designed to prove she can appeal to swing voters. She campaigned for Senate nominee Troy Jackson in Maine, Rep. Steven Horsford in Nevada, and House candidate Randy Villegas in California. She praised Jackson for not listening to D.C. consultants who would advise him to avoid appearing on a stage with her: "It takes a lot to say, you know what? No, I know my people," AOC said.
• Former Vice President Kamala Harris went on a tour that looked to have the same goal as AOC's, stumping for Nevada gubernatorial nominee Aaron Ford, New Hampshire Senate candidate Chris Pappas, and long-shot Mississippi Senate contender Scott Colom. She'll also appear on the trail for Wisconsin gubernatorial nominee David Crowley on Monday.
• 📊 Buttigieg led the primary field in yet another poll of New Hampshire, an early primary state. He campaigned with Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and appeared at a town hall organized by the progressive group More Perfect University.
• 👎 California Gov. Gavin Newsom was rated as doing a "poor" or "fair" job by most respondents in a new Citrin-Politico poll of his state's voters.
• California Rep. Ro Khanna earned bragging rights by becoming the first elected official to campaign for independent Senate hopeful Dan Osborn in Nebraska.
• 🌴 Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin visited the first-in-the-nation primary state of South Carolina, where she talked up the importance of reaching out to independents, swing voters and moderate Republicans.
• New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was also in South Carolina, his second trip to the Palmetto State this year.
• 🚍 Shapiro kicked off a statewide bus tour for his reelection campaign, hitting Erie, State College, Pittsburgh and central Pennsylvania.
• 💰 Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire, is donating $1 million to help Keisha Lance Bottoms in the race for Georgia governor.
• An early New York Times poll found a wide-open race in the 2028 Democratic primary, with Harris winning 12% of voters asked to name a favorite, Newsom 9%, Buttigieg 7% and AOC 6%.

🧸 Buttigieg likes challenges, and one he particularly likes is claw machines — those arcade glass boxes filled with cheap stuffed animals or other goodies that a player tries to snatch with a moving metal claw.

• He even had one at his 2018 wedding — the New York Times' Vows article on the ceremony noted that "Mr. Buttigieg has a weakness for claw-vending machines."

Jeff Harris, Buttigieg's campaign manager in his 2010 race to be Indiana's state treasurer, explained to Indianapolis Monthly's Adam Wren in 2018 that Buttigieg is drawn to the machines because it's "about the precision and about trying to beat the system."

• 🧠 "... He's very good at it. He looks at the angles. He looks at things a different way."

Buttigieg explained his strategy to Wren (who's now at Politico):

• "First of all, it matters how it's stacked .... You always want to go for the obvious way to win, which is to pick it up and drop it off," Buttigieg said. "Equal, and arguably more, potential lies in when you can tip it in."
• Wren said Buttigieg examined a pink-and-purple monkey near the prize bin. "Look at this guy," Buttigieg said. "All you gotta do is get a piece of it or drag something along, and tip it in."