Trump ally Rep. Dan Meuser weighs a run for Pennsylvania governor in 2026

Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser is considering a run for governor of the commonwealth in 2026, in a potential challenge to first-term Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Since winning a seat in the House of Representatives in 2018, Meuser has been a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and has built a right-wing voting record. He took part in efforts to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results, worked to ban abortion and get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and voted against legislation that sent billions of federal dollars to Pennsylvania for infrastructure repairs. 

“I have a vision for Pennsylvania, and with a vision comes a plan, and with a plan comes the right people to execute, very similar, frankly, to what President Trump is going to do in the USA,” Meuser told Harrisburg TV station FOX43 on Jan. 8. “I think it could be done in Pennsylvania, and that’s why I’m considering.”

Who is Meuser?

Meuser, a millionaire and former medical equipment company executive, was Pennsylvania’s secretary of revenue from 2011 to 2015 under Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. He currently represents the 9th Congressional District in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Meuser’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Meuser touts his membership in the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of representatives who say that they are “committed to advancing common-sense solutions to key issues facing our nation. Our Members sit down together every week to debate, exchange ideas, and find common ground.”

In practice, Meuser’s voting record has been consistently conservative: He has voted with Trump 93.2% of the time and with President Joe Biden in just 18.6% of votes. He voted to reject Pennsylvania’s own presidential electors as part of an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Meuser opposes reproductive rights and received a 100% rating from National Right to Life for his votes in the last Congress. His 2018 campaign website called for constitutional protections for “each born and preborn human person.” He cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, a 2021 bill that would have given full legal protections to all fertilized embryos and fetuses, banned nearly all abortions nationally, and put access to IVF treatments at risk.

After running for Congress as a supporter of public funds for private and religious schools, Meuser cosponsored the Educational Choice for Children Act, a 2023 bill that would have effectively funded school vouchers. In the aftermath of the 2018 mass school shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, he tweeted “Thoughts and prayers” before voting against efforts to protect kids from gun violence that included universal background checks, a red flag bill to temporarily disarm those judged to be an imminent danger, and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a compromise law that expanded background checks for those under age 21.

Meuser opposed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provided more than $15 billion in funding to Pennsylvania for improvement of roads, bridges, transit, ports, airports, water systems, and broadband. Following the 2024 collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore, Meuser said on Fox Business: “It was kind of outrageous immediately for Biden to express in this tragedy the idea that he’s going to use federal funds to pay for it in entirety.”

In 2018, he endorsed “repealing and replacing Obamacare,” the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which has allowed hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians to obtain health care coverage through an insurance exchange and protected millions of people in the commonwealth from denial of coverage and from higher premiums based on preexisting medical conditions.  

Meuser repeatedly sided with the Big Pharma, voting against authorizing the Medicare program to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices. His most recent financial disclosure statements indicate that he holds thousands of dollars’ worth of stock in drug companies.

Who funds his campaigns?

According to the nonpartisan site OpenSecrets, Meuser has received nearly $300,000 over the course of his political career in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and health products industry. He has taken more than $265,000 from the securities and investments sector, $200,000 from the insurance industry, and $100,000 from oil and gas interests. 

All told, he has received more than $1.5 million from political action committees representing corporate interests.

In August 2021, the government affairs site LegiStorm reported that Meuser had violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which requires lawmakers to make timely public disclosures of any stock purchases made by their families. His wife and dependent children purchased up to $600,000 in stock after the stock market crashed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but he did not disclose the purchases for more than a year. 

In a press statement at the time, Meuser blamed his stock broker and called it “a case of human error.”

What would the stakes be in the race?

While Meuser would likely land significant funding and Republican backing if he challenged Shapiro, the representative could face an uphill battle in a state that has overwhelmingly supported incumbent governors’ reelection bids, said John Kennedy, a West Chester University political science professor who specializes in state politics. Only one incumbent governor, Corbett, has lost a reelection bid in the commonwealth since the 1850s.

Shapiro, a former Pennsylvania attorney general who handily won the 2022 gubernatorial election and is now being floated as a possible presidential candidate in 2028, has built a reputation as a moderate who’s able to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Kennedy said. The Democratic governor’s approval ratings are high and in September topped those of Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, and even Taylor Swift.

“Gov. Shapiro, his numbers remain strong, and I think he’s going to be formidable,” Kennedy said. “When you look at the Republican potential candidates, [Meuser] certainly would be among the strongest candidates they could put up against the governor, but, still, defeating an incumbent governor is very rare in Pennsylvania. 

“And this governor has been able to maintain a high profile, and I think he has appeal somewhat across the board, certainly among moderates and independents, but even among some Republicans,” Kennedy continued. “It’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to be well-funded, certainly.”

Should Meuser win, Kennedy said, the kind of political climate that would make his victory possible would likely mean there would again be a Republican trifecta in state government, with GOP control of the governorship, the House and the Senate. The last time Republicans had a trifecta in Pennsylvania was in 2014. Democrats won a one-seat majority in the House in November’s election. The lower chamber is now tied 101-101 following Democratic Rep. Matt Gergely’s death in January. A special election for Gergely’s seat will be held March 25.

“I think if Meuser were to win, or any Republican were to win [the governorship], it would be, in my mind, highly unlikely Democrats would be able to hold their one-seat majority,” Kennedy said and added that the race’s results will largely be shaped by public opinion on Trump close to two years into his administration.

Meuser’s determination to mimic Trump’s MAGA agenda in Pennsylvania could result in attacks against reproductive rights and public education, a move to so-called school choice initiatives and vouchers that funnel public funding to private schools, and tax cuts, Kennedy said.

A Republican trifecta in 2026 could also be significantly different from GOP trifectas of the past. Kennedy said that Pennsylvania’s Republicans have moved increasingly to the right in the wake of Trump’s first election in 2016.

“Those moderate suburban Republicans who once dominated the Legislature prior to 20 years ago, they’re gone,” Kennedy said. “Republicans with the trifecta in 2027 would be much different than a Republican trifecta in 2011.”

Adam Hosey, the political director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates, said a Meuser administration would significantly curb access to reproductive care in the commonwealth.

“Should Congressman Meuser run for governor and become governor, I don’t think there would be reproductive rights in Pennsylvania,” Hosey said. “He would work as hard as he could to eliminate the right to abortion in the state. He would do everything he could to chip away at the rights that we’ve been pushing so hard to fight back for.”

The anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America graded Meuser an “A+” for his votes in Congress, saying he “stood up against the ever-growing pro-abortion agenda of the Biden-Harris administration and the radical bureaucrats who are actively working to expand abortion access, resources, and funding.”

Abortion remains legal through the 23rd week of pregnancy in the commonwealth, but reproductive rights advocates have long warned that could quickly change with a shift in the state’s political leadership. Shapiro and Democratic lawmakers have worked to protect abortion rights and expand access to reproductive care. Republicans, including former Gov. Corbett, have fought to restrict reproductive care in Pennsylvania.

If Democrats did maintain control of the House but Meuser won his bid for governor, Meuser would still be able to significantly restrict access to abortion and other reproductive care by overseeing policy implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services and other state agencies, Hosey said. 

“All the departments would be doing as much as they could to eliminate access,” Hosey said.