Gov. Shapiro Pointedly Declines to Back Scandal-Plagued Incumbent From His Own Party Days Before the Primary
The withheld endorsement praised as principled leadership or condemned as backstabbing, depending on which primary the reader is losing
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
The governor announced days before a contested primary that he would not support a scandal-shadowed incumbent from his own party, a public non-endorsement that landed with all the subtlety of an empty chair placed center stage and aimed at the door.
Gov. Shapiro framed the decision as a matter of standards, a stance his admirers called courageous and his critics called a knife delivered with excellent posture. Both descriptions, the Press notes, are reused verbatim each cycle with only the governor's name swapped.
The incumbent, facing an ethics cloud he denies, insisted the governor's snub was a betrayal of party loyalty — the same loyalty the incumbent had cheerfully withheld from others when their scandals were the ones in season.
The Press's campaign desk confirms that abandoning a compromised ally is 'cleaning up the party' when your side does it and 'a cynical purge' when theirs does, and that the two phrases have never once been applied to the same event by the same person.
The governor declined further comment, letting the empty chair, as is tradition, do the talking.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: The governor said he does not support a scandal-plagued congressman from his own party who faces primary challengers and an ethics investigation, which the congressman denies, days before the primary.