Just a day after the primary election last week, with the field of candidates finally set for November, Gov. Josh Shapiro hit the campaign trail with a message about fighting “the chaos, the cruelty and the corruption coming out of Washington, D.C.”

For years, Shapiro has repeated the argument to voters that he serves as a bulwark protecting the state he leads from unpopular Republican policies in Washington.

But when he said the line again in Luzerne County on Wednesday, Shapiro wasn’t referring to himself; he was stumping for Paige Cognetti, the Scranton mayor running to unseat U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan.

It’s one of four GOP-held congressional seats in the state that Democrats are targeting — and one of a handful of contests this year that will test as never before Shapiro’s standing as a national leader of his party.

A reelection victory in November — even a landslide — might not be enough to vault Shapiro to the front of the pack of potential 2028 contenders for the White House.

For that, experts say, he’ll need to bring others along with him.

Democrats nationwide will be watching to see whether Shapiro can carry his party to power in the largest swing state by campaigning for nominees trying to flip the Republican-held seats that will determine who controls the General Assembly — and possibly even the U.S. House.

For Pennsylvania Democrats, it’s a historic opportunity.

The party controls the state House by a single vote. In the Senate, Democrats need to gain just three seats to take control of the chamber for the first time in more than 30 years.

And across the country — after an unprecedented wave of gerrymandering slashed the number of competitive U.S. House seats — the four closely divided districts in Pennsylvania could decide whether Democrats claw back power in Washington in November.

At the same time, President Donald Trump’s plummeting popularity — just over a third of Americans approve of his performance in office, according to recent surveys — has created a political environment ripe for sweeping Democratic gains.

“If we’re going to do it, this is the year,” said Eileen Hartnett Abillar, the Democrat running to unseat Republican state Sen. Frank Farry in Bucks County.

For Shapiro, the favorable environment for Democrats and his role as the highest elected official in one of the most important battleground states will only heighten the scrutiny as the midterm campaigns play out, experts said.

“If he’s not able to deliver, he certainly will look weaker as a candidate for national office,” said Vince Galko, a GOP strategist based in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The high-stakes midterm races in Pennsylvania come at a pivotal moment for Shapiro’s party.

Just 18 months after Democrats suffered crushing losses in the 2024 presidential election — in part because the party lost support among both white working-class voters and among Black and Latino voters who have long made up a crucial part of its base — polls show a deep and lingering distrust in the Democratic establishment.

An internal report released last week by the Democratic National Committee said the party had lost touch with vast swaths of the country.

“Millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to healthcare, manufacturing and job losses, and a failing infrastructure, yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their best interests because they do not see themselves reflected in the America of the Democratic Party,” according to the report, which had been commissioned as an autopsy of the 2024 race.

As Democrats have struggled to win over those voters, and growing parts of the party’s base have demanded that elected leaders fight harder against the Trump administration, Shapiro has pitched himself more as a pragmatist than as an ideologue, analysts say.

During his three statewide campaigns — two for attorney general and one for governor — Shapiro has outperformed the Democratic presidential candidate in crucial areas of the state.

In his 2022 campaign, Shapiro won four counties that Trump had carried two years earlier, and eight counties that Trump won in 2024.

And in some of the most conservative areas of the state, including the deep-red counties in the southwestern corner, Shapiro has won thousands more votes than his party’s presidential contenders.

For a party that many see as out of touch with middle- and working-class Americans, “He helps redefine the brand in a way that is acceptable to a majority in Pennsylvania,” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist and ad maker based in Philadelphia.

Balaban pointed to the 10th Congressional District, a conservative-leaning area that surrounds Harrisburg and is represented by Scott Perry, a close Trump ally.

Trump carried the district in all three of his presidential campaigns. But in 2022, Shapiro won 55% of the vote there and beat the Republican nominee for governor, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, by more than 37,000 votes.

Beginning last summer, Shapiro began pushing the candidacy of Janelle Stelson, a former news anchor who lost to Perry in 2024 by 5,000 votes — a margin of less than 1.3%.

This year, Stelson faced Dauphin County Commissioner Justin Douglas for the Democratic nomination, and she got an early boost from Shapiro, whose endorsement came last summer.

On Tuesday, Stelson easily won the Democratic primary with about two-thirds of the vote.

It’s one of three Republican-held districts where Shapiro pushed for his preferred candidates in contested primaries — including in the 7th District, where he and Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., helped Bob Brooks win a four-way race with 41% of the vote.

Brooks will face freshman U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in November and attempt to recapture a seat that Democrats lost two years ago by a single percentage point. The district covers all of Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon counties and part of Monroe County.

In the 1st District, just outside of Philadelphia, Shapiro backed Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie, who went on to win 65% of the vote in the primary.

The incumbent he’s trying to unseat, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, is the only Republican congressman in Pennsylvania who represents a district that Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024.

For the fourth seat that Democrats are targeting — U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan in the 8th district, covering the northeast corner of the state — Cognetti ran unopposed in the primary.

When Shapiro ran for his first term as governor, he carried all three districts with at least 54% of the vote.

Shapiro’s backing in those races is “no guarantee of victory” in November, but it could sway moderate voters otherwise skeptical of the Democratic Party, Balaban said.

As party activists across the country battle over whether the party should focus on the priorities of its progressive base or try to expand its appeal to voters who’ve turned to the GOP in recent elections, party leaders in Pennsylvania see Shapiro’s involvement in these races as a test case.

“Josh Shapiro’s brand, our Pennsylvania brand — that's how we're going to take back the U.S. House,” state House majority leader Matt Bradford, D-70th, said at a rally on election night.

Farther down the ballot, Democratic victories could be even more consequential for Shapiro.

Efforts to expand the party’s one-vote margin in the House would give Shapiro and Democratic leaders more leeway to push their priorities through the chamber, but the real prize is on the other side of the Capitol rotunda: the GOP-controlled Senate.

For decades, the state Senate has been a bastion of Republican power. Democrats haven’t had the majority since 1993, the year Bill Clinton was sworn in as president.

During Shapiro’s first three years in office, Republicans have used their power over the chamber to block major Democratic proposals including raising the minimum wage and legalizing marijuana, and have forced Democrats into painful negotiations over spending.

Just last year, Shapiro and House leaders deadlocked with Senate Republicans over the budget in an impasse that lasted 135 days.

But the GOP’s margin has been whittled down over the last few election cycles, and the party’s once-insurmountable majority is down to just two seats.

“We must grow the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Then we’ve got to do what we’ve been trying to get done for far too long: We must flip the Senate,” said state Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-7th.

Of the 25 Senate seats on the ballot this year, Shapiro carried 16 of them in the last governor’s race — including four districts currently represented by Republicans.

Democratic control of the House, Senate and governor’s office would allow Shapiro to push through legislation that could burnish his image with voters outside Pennsylvania and spare him from more embarrassing budget standoffs that could undercut his “get stuff done” message.

At the election night rally, Shapiro ticked off a list of legislation that Democrats have sought for years — including raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 from the current $7.25 an hour.

“Give me a Democratic majority in the Senate and we will fully fund mass transit, we will build more housing and we will codify abortion rights right here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.

For Republicans, maintaining control of the Senate would not only allow them to continue to have a say in governing the state, but would also tarnish a rising Democratic star, Galko said.

“If he's out there campaigning and spending money but doesn’t get the results, it’s going to certainly damage his brand,” Galko said.

Perhaps more than at any time in his career, Shapiro’s political fate is tied to the politicians he’s supporting, analysts said.

“What Shapiro … really needs in this race is to improve the strength of the party organization statewide,” said Robin Kolodny, a political-science professor at Temple University. “And you don't do that by just taking care of yourself.”