The Pennsylvania Leadership Conference Scores Again
The crowd was considerable.
Safe to say, the ballroom and surrounding rooms of the Penn Harris hotel were filled to overflowing with Pennsylvania conservative activists from across the state as they gathered in suburban Harrisburg for the annual get-together of the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference.
The PLC, as it is known, advertises as follows:
The Pennsylvania Leadership Conference is the premiere gathering of public policy conservatives each year in the Keystone State. It is the largest and longest-running of the state-based conservative conferences regularly attracting a long list of conservative elected officials, scholars, journalists, and activists for three days of speeches, panel presentations, workshops, and networking.
As a regular attendee myself, I always look forward to this spring festival for Pennsylvania conservatives. This year, the featured speaking attractions are Chris Ruddy, the founder and CEO of Newsmax; Linda McMahon, the Trump administration’s secretary of education; Stacy Garrity, the Pennsylvania state treasurer and the state GOP’s 2026 soon-to-be nominee for governor, and the area’s 10th District congressman, Scott Perry. And for sure, I will be appearing on a Saturday panel with Newsmax colleague John Gizzi and Grove City historian/The American Spectator managing editor Paul Kengor to discuss the state of the Conservative Movement.
The Conference reports:
This year’s Pennsylvania Leadership Conference will provide attendees with an expanded menu of workshop sessions on Thursday and a new welcome reception on Thursday evening.
Workshop sessions include: From Community to the Capitol: Recruiting the Right Leaders; Stop Shapiro’s Tax Hikes; Getting Stuff Right: Protecting Life, Families & Religious Liberty; Are Your Ready to Run: Questions to Ask Yourself Before Running for Office; Show Me the Money: Putting the Fun in Fundraising; Faith & Politics: Appealing to Conservatives of Faith; Social Media: Battling the Keyboard Warriors; Public Speaking: Overcoming the World’s # 1 Fear; Capturing the Youth Vote: Engaging a New Generation: The Real Nature of Politics; Powering Pennsylvania: Energy Policy, Prices and Jobs; Roadmap to an America First Immigration System: Election Integrity & Litigation: Inside and Outside the Commonwealth; Pennsylvania’s Shifting Coalitions; A History of the Republican Party.
The 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference will feature five panel presentations including: The Health Care Check Up: Why Competition Beats Bureaucracy; Ain’t Got Stuff Done: Examining Governor Shapiro’s record; Ideas to Impacts: Entrepreneurship in Pennsylvania; Protect Women’s Sports; and Powering the Future: Energy and AI in Pennsylvania.
The PLC notes that portion of the conference will air live on the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) and their streaming platform PCN Select – Home. It will also stream on the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference Facebook page.
Why would this be notable this year? This is, of course, a midterm election year. In Pennsylvania, while there is no U.S. Senate election (Republican Dave McCormick won the last Senate race), there is a hot race for governor. Incumbent Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro, frequently mentioned as a potential 2028 Democrat candidate for president, is facing the GOP’s seriously popular State Treasurer Stacey Garrity. If she wins, Garrity would be Pennsylvania’s first woman governor, something that is giving her considerable attention right now. Shapiro is, in fact, a tough opponent for any GOP nominee, but Garrity is decidedly out there on the campaign trail giving her race everything.
Pennsylvania, where I grew up, starting with high school days, is what might be called a purple state politically. Places like Philadelphia or Pittsburgh are as blue as might be expected from urban areas. But Central Pennsylvania and parts of the state’s northeast and northwest sections are either solidly red or, at a minimum, purple. On the presidential level, the state has voted both red and blue over the decades, depending on the candidates and the political issues of the moment.
So all of this combines to make the PLC a serious contributor of activists and money in an election year. And as I can attest from attending my share of workshops thus far, and talking with PLC attendees. Suffice to say, they are determined to turn out the conservative base across the state this November.
So we shall see. There are months to go until the November election day. But the conservative grass roots are, it can be safely said, already swinging into action.
Which is to say the PLC, led by Chairman Dave Taylor and President and CEO Lowman Henry, is decidedly focused and on the job. All of which promises to make the 2026 election at all levels in Pennsylvania a serious focus of political activism.
This political year in William Penn’s Commonwealth will not be dull.
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