'Tarnished forever': GOP candidate tries to walk back election denial
On Jan. 5, 2021, then-Treasurer elect Stacy Garrity stood before a cold crowd at the Pennsylvania Capitol, at a rally intended to push lawmakers to decertify the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania.
“Let there be no question, I’m speaking about election integrity,” Garrity said to a crowd waving Trump flags that had cheered on speaker after speaker decrying a stolen presidency. “The election from this November is tarnished forever.”
But, according to her re-election campaign, Garrity wasn’t talking about that election.
“Stacy Garrity spoke at the January 5 rally in Harrisburg on one issue and one issue alone: the inconsistent application of ballot counting rules that directly affected the outcome of a state senate race in the 45th District,” said Jim Tkacik, a spokesperson for her campaign.
Tkacik also said that Garrity accepts the results of the 2020 election, and will accept the results of the 2024 election, even if former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, loses.
Yet it was not the only time Garrity appeared to publicly question the results of the election.
At a 2022 rally for GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, Garrity was invited on stage by Trump. Speaking about the help he offered her 2020 campaign, Garrity pointed to Trump and said, “we know that he won.”
Even taking Tkacik at his word about the Jan. 5 rally, and assuming Garrity was only speaking about the 45th District, the event’s organizer told reporters at the time that the goal was “asking the state legislature to have a vote on the floor to decertify the election votes.”
A video of 40 minutes of the rally, which does not include Garrity’s remarks, shows speakers were unequivocally challenging the presidential election results.
The only available video of Garrity’s speech, published by a partisan blog, appears to begin in the middle of her remarks, yet in the three minutes available, she never mentions the 45th district.
When questioned about these inconsistencies, Tkacik said, “Treasurer Garrity has previously stated that Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States. Pennsylvanians are reminded of this reality every time they fill up their gas tanks or buy groceries.”
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.