Dear Friends and Supporters,

Thank you for your tremendous support throughout our race for U.S. Congress. We began this race nearly a year ago. It was “all-in” for the entire Shaffer family. Stacey, the kids, and I all gave it 110% -- from sign waving at 7AM to attending countless community events, we worked tirelessly to reach every corner of the district for the past year. All of you, our volunteers and donors, also went above and beyond!

Together we did it all: handwriting tens of thousands of postcards and envelopes, making thousands of phone calls, putting up signs across the district, and giving generous contributions. I cannot adequately express my thanks to you. This was a true team effort, and we have much to be proud of. Our message of bringing people together to solve the big problems looming in our country resonated with voters across the political spectrum. 

Unfortunately, the result fell short of our expectations and left us with the questions of why and what can we do differently in the future. Here is my quick attempt at an analysis. In Western Pennsylvania, we had a large blue wave that hit nearly every race either eroding our margins in Republican leaning areas or leading Democrats to victory everywhere else.

To illustrate this, here in the 17th Congressional District, our gubernatorial candidate lost by 26%, and Dr. Oz lost the vote in the 17th district by 14% to Fetterman. Through our collective efforts, our Congressional campaign was able to claw back 20% of Shapiro’s margin, but we still fell short by approximately 6% and lost 53%-47%.

Overall turnout was 64% across Beaver and Allegheny Counties. The Democrats were highly effective in organizing mail-in voting efforts which significantly aided all of their candidates. As the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review pointed out, our campaign won the 260,000 election-day votes by a 12% margin, but we lost the 95,000 mail-in votes by a 60% margin. Moving forward, Republicans in Pennsylvania will need to come up with a more effective approach to mail-in voting because it will not be going away with a new Democrat governor and a Democrat-controlled State House. 

Together, we all poured our hearts and soul into this race and left nothing behind. The red wave we were expecting turned into a massive blue wave that overran even our best efforts. The result was obviously a great disappointment. I cherish the friendships made during the course of this campaign, and I hope to continue to grow those friendships as we work together to continue to have a positive impact in our communities. 

As we approach Thanksgiving, I want to remind us all that despite the disappointment on election day, we still have much to be thankful for as I continue to believe that we live in the greatest country in the history of the world. The United States of America, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and our local communities are too important to give up on. There is too much at stake for current and future generations.

I encourage each of you to stay active and engaged. Your support is what kept me and our family going strong throughout this campaign season, and candidates in the upcoming local elections will need that same support and enthusiasm. Stacey and I will also continue to stay active in the fight to make our country, state, and local communities even better places. 

Sincerely,