In the latest twist over Pennsylvania’s participation in President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair, Pennsylvania’s U.S. Sens. Dave McCormick and John Fetterman announced Saturday that the state where America was founded will be represented after all.
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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro initially signaled the intention for Pennsylvania to participate in Trump’s 16-day fair on the National Mall. But this week, he said state officials could not find a Pennsylvania business to sponsor the state’s booth.
On the fair’s opening day, Pennsylvania had no official presence, and the booth reserved for the commonwealth remained empty, except for a flag that read “250” in Pennsylvania’s space.
Following that news, McCormick (R., Pa.) and Fetterman (D., Pa.) said in a joint news release Saturday that they secured private-industry sponsors for the booth at no cost to taxpayers. Sponsors include the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, and other organizations.
“Pennsylvania is where America’s story began, and there was no way we were going to let the Commonwealth go unrepresented during our Nation’s 250th birthday celebration,” McCormick said in the release.
“Celebrating America’s 250th birthday and Pennsylvania’s special role in our country is important and bipartisan,” Fetterman said. “We discovered our commonwealth wasn’t participating in the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, and we should be.”
Shapiro told The New Republic earlier this week that when his administration approached major Pennsylvania companies to participate, “none were interested.”
“It reflects this sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in — that the president has politicized this to a degree that businesses don’t want to participate,” he told The New Republic.
However, sources close to the sponsor search confirmed for The Inquirer that at least two major Pennsylvania companies agreed to provide products and other donations to give away at Pennsylvania’s fair booth, but were unable to initially do so due to short notice.
In a statement Saturday after the senators announced their plans, a Shapiro spokesperson said the administration was “unwilling to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fund the Great American State Fair amid the historic slate of events across Pennsylvania in 2026.”
Before McCormick and Fetterman’s intervention, Shapiro administration officials were told that Freedom250, the organization planning the fair, would be “handling the booth” in absence of formal state participation, said Rosie Lapowsky, Shapiro’s press secretary.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture also sent state literature that began appearing in the booth on Saturday, according to Freedom250.
But Pennsylvania’s search for business sponsors was brief, according to a source close to the search.
The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, which was charged with finding sponsors, said Shapiro’s office called the organization less than two weeks before the fair began. Other states, the chamber said, had been working on their displays since January.
“The Governor’s team asked us for assistance with business outreach for the Great American State Fair just two weeks before the event. While there was interest, the short time frame made it difficult for many businesses to fully commit,” said Jon Anzur, the chamber’s senior vice president of public affairs. “We are now reengaging those and other companies as we partner with Senators McCormick and Fetterman.”
In the absence of official Pennsylvania representatives and sponsors, McCormick and Fetterman were suddenly on Saturday able to secure private groups to staff the booth and help coordinate sponsors for the remainder of the fair.
According to a source briefed on the conversation, Shapiro and McCormick spoke Saturday about the senators’ plans to fill the booth, and Shapiro offered to send additional state literature.
Crayola is among the sponsors that will send along crayons, markers, and coloring books for a coloring station, which should be operational as early as Sunday. Other sponsors have signed on as well, though they were not immediately identified and their contributions were not disclosed.
Pennsylvania is among a list of at least 10 states, some Democratic-led, that have officially dropped out of the Great American State Fair, including Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
During the fair’s opening days, nearly every other state was represented, with most sending government staff or tourism officials to host educational or interactive exhibits.
New Jersey also officially declined to participate, but Cape May County, a Republican stronghold, stepped in to represent the state. Its exhibit features an 8-ton sand sculpture created by a Wildwood artist over the course of more than four days.
Delaware highlighted Founding Father Caesar Rodney’s ride to cast the decisive vote for independence in Philadelphia.
Sam Janesch and Andrea Padilla contributed to this article.