HARRISBURG — Pennsylvanians will head to the polls on Nov. 5 to choose who they want to serve as their state treasurer for the next four years.
Democrat Erin McClelland will face Republican incumbent Stacy Garrity and third-party candidates.
The state treasurer is one of three elected row officers in the commonwealth, and plays a crucial role in managing state dollars. They can serve a maximum of two four-year terms.
Learn more about McClelland below:
Who is Erin McClelland?
A native of Western Pennsylvania, McClelland graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University.
Her career includes a decade and a half in substance abuse and mental health counseling, project managing, and program directing.
McClelland also worked as a process improvement manager with the Institute for Research, Education and Training in Addictions, and founded Arche Wellness, Pennsylvania’s first orthomolecular recovery program for addiction.
“I … ran a small business,” McClelland told Spotlight PA. “I’m the only person in the race that had to make a payroll — [that] has been a defining part of my career and how I look at finance and workers, so that’s important to me.”
McClelland registered Arche Wellness twice — once as a private limited liability company and another time as a nonprofit; they were dissolved in 2015 and 2017, respectively.
According to the nonprofit's financial records, it received $700,000 in funding from the Usher Family Foundation, the charitable endowment of former CEO of U.S. Steel and Pittsburgh magnate Thomas Usher and his wife Sandra Usher.
McClelland later worked as a project manager for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services between 2015 and 2024.
This isn’t her first time running for office. In 2014 and 2016, McClelland won Democratic primaries in races for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, but lost the general election both times to then-incumbent Republican Keith Rothfus.
On her campaign website, McClelland wrote that being on the ballot alongside Trump in 2016 was instructive and showed her that “the issues of rural and working-class voters [were] ignored by my own party.”
“The 2024 election will test just how committed to good union jobs, economic equality, and global human rights Pennsylvania Democrats really are,” she said in a campaign prospectus.
McClelland has criticized the incumbent treasurer’s support for a Democrat-sponsored bill that would create Keystone Saves, a statewide retirement plan option for employers who otherwise can’t afford to offer one. Pitched as a public-private partnership, it would involve employees contributing to IRA accounts, which would then be managed by a private third-party firm.
While the bill passed the state House this legislative session with bipartisan support — including from state Rep. Ryan Bizzarro (D., Erie), who challenged McClelland during the Democratic primary — McClelland calls it the “George W. Bush Great Recession Starter Kit” and says it creates a “privatized, unregulated, self-directed, non-employer sponsored ‘retirement plan.’”
According to her campaign website, McClelland would “protect our workers and our taxpayers from dangerous, unregulated financial products and scam investments like the Keystone Saves program.”
