Trump backs Mastriano in Pennsylvania GOP governor primary
HARRISBURG, PA. » Donald Trump on Saturday endorsed Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for governor, siding with a far-right candidate who was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and has worked doggedly to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Mastriano was already leading a crowded field of contenders despite running against the party establishment, and the former president’s endorsement puts him on even stronger footing heading into Tuesday’s primary.
But there are growing fears from party leaders that Mastriano, a state senator and retired U.S. Army colonel, is too extreme to beat Democrat Josh Shapiro in November’s general election and could drag down other Republicans competing in the pivotal state.
That includes a highly competitive U.S. Senate primary contest in which Trump is trying to lift his endorsed candidate, heart surgeon-turned-TV celebrity Mehmet Oz, to victory — against a rival with whom Mastriano is campaigning, setting up what could become an awkward situation.
Mastriano got on Trump’s radar by helping spread unsubstantiated claims from the former president and his allies that Democrats fraudulently stole the 2020 election for Joe Biden — something that Trump seized on in his endorsement statement.
“There is no one in Pennsylvania who has done more, or fought harder, for Election Integrity than State Senator Doug Mastriano,” Trump wrote. “He has revealed the Deceit, Corruption, and outright Theft of the 2020 Presidential Election, and will do something about it.”
Trump called Mastriano “a fighter like few others, and has been with me right from the beginning, and now I have an obligation to be with him.”
Besides campaigning with key figures in Trump’s circle who have spread lies about the last election, Mastriano also floated a plan to let state lawmakers wipe out that election result and make their own decision on which candidate should receive the state’s electoral votes.
As a result he was subpoenaed by the U.S. House committee investigating the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
If elected, Mastriano has said he would take the extraordinary step of requiring voters to “re-register” to vote. “We’re going to start all over again,” he said during a debate last month.
Such a move is barred by the National Voter Registration Act and likely runs into significant protections under the federal — and possibly state — constitution and laws, constitutional law scholars say.
Trump was torn on the endorsement decision in the governor’s race.
Some allies desperately urged him to stay out of the race or to endorse a Mastriano rival, such as Lou Barletta, a former congressman who was the party’s Trump-endorsed nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018.
With Mastriano leading the nine-person primary field, party officials and conservative activists believed that votes for more electable establishment candidates are too splintered to head off his consolidation of far-right voters.
On Friday, Mastriano told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s online “War Room” broadcast that the Republican establishment “is panicking, I mean, literally wetting themselves” at the prospect that he will be the nominee.
At a campaign event Saturday in suburban Philadelphia, Mastriano told the crowd that no one could overtake him, even with the party’s help.