Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (AP) —In the six days leading up to the Pennsylvania Primary, Republicans openly miss the opportunity for the party to take power as a leading candidate is not elected in the crowded GOP governor elections. Concerned. Battlefield state executive suite.
Doug Mastriano, 58, a retired U.S. Army colonel who has been a state senator since 2019, runs to the right of the nine Republican fields and opposes the establishment of a party in the state. Still shaken by former President Donald Trump’s unfounded conspiracy theory The Democrats stole the 2020 elections there.
Mastriano is a prominent merchant with unfounded claims that widespread fraud has hurt the 2020 elections and that Democratic Governor Tom Wolfe was involved in the deaths of thousands of COVID-19s in nursing homes. During the pandemic, he contained the virus and downplayed his efforts to spread the conspiracy theory about the COVID-19 vaccine.
It was made for a long time Republican officials and movement conservatives are uncomfortable They are becoming more vocal about Mastriano’s outlook for the fall general election match against Democrat Josh Shapiro.
On Monday, State Senate leader Kim Ward in favor of rival candidate Doug Mastriano, saying he couldn’t attract the moderate voters needed to win the Pennsylvania general election. I picked it out.
“I’m appealing to the base Republicans, but I’m worried that the Democrats will destroy him as a swing voter,” Mastriano wrote on her personal Facebook page. “It’s not a victory to win the Primary and lose the general because the candidate can’t get the voters in the middle,” she added.
Mike McMonagul, president of the Pennsylvania Prolife Union, said Mastriano has received the highest praise from his organization for all its support for a complete ban on abortion. However, the organization supports White, at least in part, because Mastriano “will be attacked by Shapiro in the general election.”
The Republican Party has been locked out of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Office since 2014 under the Democratic Governor Tom Wolfe, who has been banned from running again due to term restrictions.
Losing the contest again this year means that the Republicans are wasting their turn. Since the state constitution was changed in 1968 to allow the governor to serve two terms, every time the Democratic Party for a limited term left, the party regained power at every election.
However, Republicans endanger low-voting GOP candidates because Mastriano is too toxic to acquire medium-sized Republican and swing voters in the populous suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. I’m worried about being there.
Mastriano It came out of nowhere in 2020 and became a rising force in right-wing politics.
He led an anti-shutdown rally at the beginning of the pandemic, livestreaming daily chats on Facebook and playing against conspiracy theorists. He has become a central figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election — Obtaining a subpoena for Mastriano by the Parliamentary Commission Investigation of the riots at the US Capitol on January 6th.
Democrats are beginning to pay more attention to Mastriano, portraying him as a radical to undermine him prior to the general election.
Recently, the Democratic Party released digital advertisements and leaflets attacking Mastriano, but Shapiro upheld the ban on abortion and vowed to abolish mail voting and conspiracy-led 2020 investigation attempts, making Mastriano extreme. We are broadcasting a state-wide television advertisement that we have drawn as a digital thing. selection.
Their conclusion is, if Mastriano wins, “it’s a win of what Donald Trump represents.”
“Dag Mastriano retreats our federation on an extreme agenda. He is not near the governor,” Shapiro’s campaign said in a statement.
Mastriano said in a telephone interview with Lancaster-based LNP news organization that Shapiro’s attack would “absolutely” help him win the primary.
“I would have to send him a thank-you card,” Mastriano told LNP. He added that Shapiro underestimated him and that the Republican Party was “in panic mode” with the prospect that he would be a candidate for the party.
Neither Trump nor the state Republicans have approved it in the primary race, leaving it much wider open. And while Mastriano was once considered a fringe candidate, it exceeded expectations in areas where some candidates began with far more money and name recognition.
A recent Franklin and Marischal College poll states that 20% of Republican primaries support Doug Mastriano. Bill Maxwayne and Lou Barletta were slightly behind, 12% and 11%, respectively.
Still, a large group of voters, one-third, is undecided, and even among those who say they support the candidate, about half said they could change their minds.
Mastriano first gained support by leading an anti-shutdown rally early in the pandemic, and later became one of Trump’s most devoted supporters during the 2020 campaign.
He worked with Trump to overturn the results and planned a bus trip to the US Capitol for Trump’s January 6 “Stop Stealing” rally.
Last May, he said on a radio show that Trump said Asked me Run for governor.
In the weeks that follow He tried to start an Arizona-style partisan “audit” Of the 2020 election Deprived of the chair of his committee Under the leadership of the Republican State Senate in a clash over contractor funding and employment.
Mastriano boasts that he is more conservative than his rivals, attracts more crowds, and is not a politician, but a class that ridicules him as corrupt.
He often campaigns with key figures in Trump’s circle, such as former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and lawyer Jenna Ellis, who have spread denials about the 2020 elections. He then campaigned on a powerful Christian theme, prayed for the campaign event, gave a speech with something out of the Bible, and called for a fast for the last 21 days of Primary.
“So let’s stand strong together and regain our condition. When Pennsylvania recovers, we believe there is a revival here that we have never seen before,” Mastriano said. He told the audience on his week-long bus tour at Somerset on Monday. “And it will bring our country back to where it is needed in God.”
The general election cycle will bring new challenges to Mastriano.
He almost avoided talking to independent media, including the Associated Press, and kept reporters out of his campaign event. Last week, after attending a conservative Delaware Valley Journal podcast, he got what the organization called a “meltdown” and hung up 20 minutes later.
What made Mastriano stand out was his recent conversation with an audience of QAnon supporters, his allegations of fraudulent elections, and questions about his activities at the Capitol on January 6.
The subpoena from the Commission on January 6 was summoned at the only major televised debate attended by Mastriano. He claimed that there were no “legal issues”.
Meanwhile, Shapiro unified the Democratic Party and its allies.
Washington County Republican Chairman Dave Ball said many Republicans are concerned that Mastriano’s complaint is narrow.
But the Republicans need Mastriano and his voters to defeat Shapiro, regardless of who won the primary, and vice versa, he said.
“The whole Republican Party should be behind the winner,” Ball said. “Because Josh Shapiro is still there.”
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Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timelywriter.