Michigan governor campaigns for Josh Shapiro at South Philly diner

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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined Gov. Josh Shapiro at the Morning Glory diner Friday in Bella Vista as patrons started their day with breakfast items such as “Shapiro 2026” and “2028 sausage gravy and eggs.”

Whitmer, another Democrat often speculated to be a potential presidential candidate, said she expected nothing less from Philadelphia.

“We’re a lot alike Michiganders and Pennsylvanians,” she said. “We’re practical people. We work hard. We do our best and our government should do the same. And so I love coming to a place like this where there’s levity and humor, but a very real desire to make sure that we win this election because there’s so much at stake.”

Whitmer’s visit brought the two Democratic governors together at a Pennsylvania campaign stop for the second time in two years. Whitmer and Shapiro had shared a Pennsylvania campaign stage before. In July 2024, they rallied for Kamala Harris in Montgomery County while both were being discussed as possible running mates.

On Friday, Whitmer returned to make the case for Shapiro himself as he seeks a second term against Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. They also expressed a need to push back against President Donald Trump and Republicans in the coming Nov. 3 midterm elections, which will decide which party controls Congress.

Shapiro said he was “working hard to help do our part to flip the Congress of the United States right here in Pennsylvania and to make sure we have a check on Donald Trump’s chaos, cruelty and corruption.”

“I’ve been on the ground in each of their districts,” he said. “People are fired up and I think they understand they not only have a great candidate in that district to rally around, they understand their part is something larger, that if they elect that candidate, that’s likely going to tilt the balance of power in the Congress of the United States and be a check on Donald Trump.”

Whitmer has served as Michigan governor since 2019, following a career in the state legislature. She will finish her second term at the end of the year and was term-limited from running for a third. Like Shapiro, she is a popular Democrat in a swing state with a divided legislature.

Shapiro, who is trying to help down-ballot Democrats expand their presence in Harrisburg and win a majority in the state Senate, has often touted his ability to cooperate with Republicans in the capital to pass bipartisan bills. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the state Senate with 27 seats compared to 23 for Democrats, while Democrats hold a three-seat majority in the state House of Representatives.

“Our minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for the last 16 years. And why is that? Because the Republicans in the Senate,” he said Friday. “They blocked it every single time.”

Morning Glory’s political specials made the diner an especially pointed backdrop for the visit. In addition to the sausage gravy and eggs, the diner’s rotating menu includes “diplomatic war criminal mediterranean scramble,” “Fauci pleads the 5th, 100 times eggs benedict,” the “open the straight, stop the killing lemon cakes,” and “ballroom barricade blueberry waffle.”

The diner opened in 1997 but started its politically themed menu in 2015. The first was the “Antonin Scalia is a Douche,” a frittata with andouille sausage, tomato, scallions and Monterey Jack cheese. The dish was created in response to the Supreme Court justice’s dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Scalia called the decision a “threat to American democracy.”

Since then, the rotating specials have taken aim at issues, with dish names weighing in on gun laws, book bans, abortion rights and the war in Gaza, while others have mocked Trump administration policies and praised local Democrats.

Shapiro also responded to the U.S. Department of Justice’s plan to send “1,000 federal election monitors to select locations around the country to observe the general election in November.” CNN reported that DOJ monitors deployed during the primaries earlier this year “helped challenge Trump’s 2020 election loss.”

Shapiro said he was “worried about Donald Trump and his enablers trying to undermine people’s right to vote,” but that the state would fight any possible efforts.

“We have great coordination with our Pennsylvania National Guard, with the Pennsylvania State Police, the local law enforcement, and we will do everything in our power to stop Donald Trump from interfering with this election and ensure that whether you vote by mail or you vote in person, you will have access to the ballot box and you’ll be protected,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis face Republican state treasurer Garrity, who recently campaigned in the city, and her running mate, Jason Richey, in November. The candidates have laid out competing approaches to taxes, housing, energy and other issues.