Two state GOP chair candidates agree to deal

One will lead party, other will help Trump

After reports this week that the acting chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, Bernadette “Bernie” Comfort, had ignored complaints from women who said they were sexually harassed, the state party announced Friday that Ms. Comfort and Lawrence Tabas — the two candidates in Saturday’s election for party chair — had agreed to a deal ending the race.

Mr. Tabas, the state party’s former general counsel, will take the state chair job, according to a statement released by party spokesman Jason Gottesman.

Ms. Comfort will be appointed the Pennsylvania campaign chairwoman by President Donald Trump’s re- election campaign, while remaining vice chair of the state party.

Ms. Comfort and Mr. Tabas released a joint statement: “When this race for PA GOP Chair unexpectedly began a few short weeks ago, each of us entered with the same goals in mind, unifying and strengthening our party and supporting President Trump’s re- election efforts in the Commonwealth. It has become clear that each of our respective campaigns had a great deal of support. Therefore, we are

joining together to form a unified team.”

The position opened up with the June 25 resignation of Val DiGiorgio after the Philadelphia Inquirer reported he had traded sexually explicit messages with a onetime GOP candidate for Philadelphia City Council.

Ms. Comfort’s role came into question Wednesday after WESA- FM reported on internal emails accusing Ms. Comfort of knowing about the texting allegations and a separate sexual harassment complaint within the party.

Then Thursday, former Allegheny County Young Republicans director Anissa Coury posted on social media that she, too, had been “a victim of [ Mr. DiGiorgio’s] unwanted, wildly inappropriate sexual advances” and had approached Ms. Comfort about it. “It didn’t seem to be of particular interest to her,” wrote Ms. Coury.

On Friday, Ms. Coury said she was “overwhelmed by the amount of support and outreach I have received from across the Commonwealth.”

“The type of disregard shown to myself and others in the past has no place in the party and frankly no place in our state. To me, this change in leadership represents a new day for the party and a great opportunity to move away from doing business as usual. Over the next few days, I will be reaching out to Mr. Tabas, Ms. Comfort and others to develop a plan to strengthen how the party responds to reports of inappropriate behavior so that this doesn’t happen in the future. I hope they are open to the conversation.”