U.S. President Donald Trump visited the ultimate swing state when, on Wednesday, July 15, he spoke in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at an event billed as the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit. During the event, Trump declared that “Pennsylvania will play a key role in building the arsenal of freedom to defend our nation in the modern world.” But former U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pennsylvania), in a biting tweet, argued that the Keystone State isn’t seeing the manufacturing renaissance that Trump promised.
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On X, the 42-year-old Lamb — an attorney and U.S. Marine Corps veteran — posted, “Pennsylvania has had fewer manufacturing jobs every single month this year than the year before. The numbers don’t lie. It’s not working.”
Pennsylvania, Trump told attendees at the Defense and Innovation Summit (which was held at the U.S. Army War College), needs to play a prominent role in the United States’ defense industry.
Democratic and GOP strategists are paying very close attention to Pennsylvania in the 2026 midterms, as it is viewed as a barometer of where the U.S. is headed politically. And one of the Pennsylvania races that is drawing national attention is its gubernatorial race, which finds incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro — a moderate Democrat — up against GOP nominee Stacy Garrity, the Pennsylvania state treasurer since 2021. On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Shapiro’s reelection campaign had fundraised a whopping $50 million since 2025.
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Shapiro’s campaign, according to the Inquirer, has implications way beyond Pennsylvania — as he is being mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential candidate for 2028. Democratic strategists are saying that Shapiro needs to win big in November in order to demonstrate that he has what it takes to go the distance if he does run for president.
During his years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Lamb represented a district that includes the Pittsburgh suburbs in the western part of the state. Lamb didn’t seek reelection in 2022, when he ran for the U.S. Senate but lost the Democratic primary to now-Sen. John Fetterman — who went on to defeat the GOP nominee, Dr. Mehmet Oz, in the general election.
Since leaving Congress in January 2023, Lamb has focused on his private law practice. Lamb has also been an attorney for the federal government, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Department of Justice (DOJ) via Western Pennsylvania before entering Congress in 2018.
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