PA governor hosted election training camp for liberal activist ‘influencers’ using public funds

(Daily Caller News Foundation) – Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro used public funds to train dozens of overwhelmingly liberal social media influencers on how they can get their audience to vote in the 2024 election, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a records request.

Shapiro directed the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to pay thousands of dollars to host a day-long “Democracy Summer Camp” on July 25 to instruct people with large social media followings on how to get their audiences to vote and how to identify “misinformation” on the internet, according to the documents. The DCNF obtained a list of 43 influencers the governor’s office invited to attend the publicly-funded training and, upon review, none of the influencers favored Republicans and roughly 70% had an explicitly liberal social media presence.

The rest of the influencers who attended the event had apolitical accounts but were from demographics that overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party, like college students and African Americans.

“We all need to get off the sidelines, get in the game, and fight for what we believe in,” Shapiro told the mostly liberal crowd in a recording of the event. “Stand up strong and proud for the values we hold dear.”

Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt provided the influencers with information on voting laws, documents show. Following that, the governor’s director of digital partnerships, Gavin Lichtenstein, told the influencers that social media users will be looking to them for information on drop boxes and voting deadlines.

“Having the governor’s office use taxpayer funds to only have Democrat social media influencers … is very, very sketchy and was a waste of taxpayer dollars,” Pennsylvania State Rep. Seth Grove told the DCNF. “That was a cost to the taxpayers to do campaign work. I don’t believe for a second they had any interest in inviting Republicans … it was lopsided and targeted to Democratic influencers.”

One of the influencers selected to attend the event, Maggie McGregor, is the daughter of Democratic National Committee treasurer Virginia McGregor, records show.

“The election in the United States of America is about eight weeks from today and I am not sitting on the sidelines,” Maggie McGregor told her followers on Sept. 24, mirroring Shapiro’s language. “As you can see, I am endorsing Kamala Harris.”

McGregor then encouraged her audience to make a “voting plan” and try to change people’s minds about who they will support in the election.

McGregor did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Also among attendees of the event were several liberal influencers with massive followings. Philadelphia-based comedian Alex Pearlman, for instance, has roughly 3 million followers across Instagram and TikTok and consistently posts videos attacking Republicans.

Many of Pearlman’s posts are critiques of conservatives. In a Wednesday post, he repeated the falsehood that former President Donald Trump plans to use the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 as a policy platform, claiming that Republicans would get rid of Medicaid and Social Security.

Pearlman has also encouraged his followers to ensure their voter registrations are up to date. 

Aaron Parnas, a pro-Ukraine influencer the Pennsylvania governor’s office invited, has over 800,000 followers on X and TikTok and works for the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party.

Pearlman and Parnas did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

Ethan Kelly, another influencer invited by Shapiro, has roughly 650,000 followers across his accounts and regularly posts about his support for the Democratic Party. Isaiah Martin, a Democrat who ran a failed Congressional campaign in 2024 and worked as a staffer for Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, was also among the attendees.

Kelly and Martin did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

Grove raised concerns about the so-called summer camp in July, PennLive reported.

“You got a Democrat administration who is angling to be high ranking in the Democratic Party, looking to be VP, asking national content creators to come to Pennsylvania and they give them what they think should be misinformation, disinformation and honest discussions about elections,” Grove said. “There should be a huge level of transparency around this, this is how misinformation begins.”

Shapiro was reportedly on the short-list to be the Democratic nominee for vice president.

At least two influencers that attended Shapiro’s event, Elizabeth Booker Houston and Elizabeth Strong, rode on the Harris campaign’s “reproductive freedom” bus in September. Houston has nearly 600,000 followers across her social media accounts and almost exclusively posts about her support for Democrats and opposition to Republicans.

Houston and Strong did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

The Democracy Summer Camp, which ran from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on July 25, cost the commonwealth of Pennsylvania roughly $4,000, including $1,170 on breakfasts,$1,820 on lunches and $200 on beverages for the attendees, documents show. Grove pointed out that the $4,000 figure did not include salaries paid to state workers to plan and administer the event.

The Pennsylvania governor’s office also invited Jordan Meiselas of MeidasTouch and Sami Sage of Betches News, two left-wing social media brands, who instructed influencers attending the event on how to make their posts go viral. MeidasTouch got its start as an anti-Trump PAC and has published falsities, Rolling Stone reported.

“They shouldn’t have done it, they shouldn’t have used taxpayer dollars and I think Governor Shapiro’s campaign should reimburse the citizens of the commonwealth for this event,” Grove, the top Republican on the Pennsylvania House appropriations committee, told the DCNF. “They know they were in the wrong, they knew they were using taxpayer funds to do an event solely for Democrats.”

The Pennsylvania governor’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.