How Republican gubernatorial pick could turn election lies into action
HARRISBURG, PA. » Doug Mastriano is not the only candidate who won a Republican primary on Tuesday after embracing Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. But no GOP contender did more to subvert that presidential election — and no one may be better positioned to subvert the next one — than Mastriano if he’s elected Pennsylvania’s governor.
In one of the most politically competitive states in the U.S., the newly minted Republican nominee for governor was deeply involved in the former president’s efforts to overturn the last election. He was at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
If he’s elected in November, Mastriano has pledged to end no-excuse vote by mail, a process that hundreds of thousands used in this week’s primary. He also wants to force millions of registered voters to register again.
While he would have to contend with a Legislature that may not go along with his plans, he would still have significant authority over elections because Pennsylvania is one of the few states where governors have the power to appoint the secretary of state. As Pennsylvania’s chief elections official, that official oversees how elections are managed, gives counties guidance on how to conduct elections and, crucially, certifies the final results.
With his far-right brand of politics, Mastriano’s victory actually has been seen by some as a gift for Democrats, leaving Republicans with a candidate so out of step with Pennsylvania that he would struggle in a general election campaign. But Pennsylvania was one of the critical states that Trump won in 2016, and he lost it by just over one percentage point in 2020. With that in mind, Democrats made an urgent case for their supporters to take Mastriano seriously.
“People should be terrified,” said Jamie Perrapato, executive director of the pro-Democrat group Turn PA Blue. “We have literally opened the door to a conspiracy theorist who was at the insurrection.”
As the reality of Mastriano’s victory settled in on Wednesday, there were early signs that GOP officials may ultimately rally behind their party’s new standard bearer, even if the prevailing mood among leading Republicans was dark.
“For the Democrats, it’s their dream candidate,” said Republican strategist David Urban, a Trump ally who called Mastriano “out of step” with the state’s broader electorate. Still, he noted that Mastriano has time to re-focus his message to expand his appeal.
“There’s a lot at stake here,” Urban said. “The governor controls the presidential election in ‘24. I hope he can moderate his message.”
Speaking on Tuesday night after winning the primary, Mastriano made clear he had no plans to suddenly pivot to the center ahead of a general election campaign against Democrat Josh Shapiro. He denied that he was an extremist.
“They like to call people who stand on the Constitution far right and extreme. I repudiate that. That is crap. That is absolutely not true,” Mastriano said, contending it’s the Democrats who have “gone extreme.”