HARRISBURG, Pa. — (AP) — Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor-elect of Pennsylvania, will take office with a decisive mandate from voters, who overwhelmingly rejected a Republican drive to pare back abortion rights and voting laws in the premier battleground state.
Shapiro, the state’s two-term attorney general, scored a massive 14 percentage point win over Republican rival Doug Mastriano in last week’s midterm election, smashed state campaign finance records and became the first candidate since 1966 to succeed a governor of the same party in Pennsylvania.
Democrats in the state also flipped a U.S. Senate seat — just the second time since the Civil War that the state elected two Democrats to the chamber — while winning a majority of the state’s congressional seats and possibly even control of the state House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years.
U.S. Sen. Bob…