Mastriano concession should end 2020 drama
State Sen. Doug Mastriano formally conceded the gubernatorial race to Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Sunday. That should end the fever of election suspicion, and of overwrought fears about the future of democracy, that has gripped many in Pennsylvania and around the country.
The Republican candidate’s statement demonstrates the irony of candidates who have questioned the legitimacy of the electoral process trying to seek office through that very process. Conceding was the right thing to do in the face of a convincing 15-point victory by Mr. Shapiro, even if it was about five days late. But it also raises the question: If Mr. Mastriano is willing to accept the results of this election — and, presumably, the much closer but still decisive election of John Fetterman to the U.S. Senate — what was so questionable about Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020?
Of course, refusing to concede would have inflicted considerable damage on Pennsylvania’s political culture. But it also would have been consistent with Mr. Mastriano’s apparent belief that Pennsylvania elections are subject to rampant fraud. He chose the better part, but it’s still a decision that casts doubt on the sincerity of his previous election claims.
This may seem to be an unfair assessment of Mr. Mastriano’s choices: a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t analysis. But it was he who decided to make questioning the security and legitimacy of the state’s elections a centerpiece of his own election campaign. He walked into this catch22; no one forced him into it.
Now that he has resolved this tension by conceding — both his own race and, implicitly, the reality that Pennsylvania elections are trustworthy — it’s time for the most overheated rhetoric about American elections and democracy to cool. Around the country, candidates who denied Donald Trump’s defeat ran for office, and around the country they lost and largely accepted their defeats. They showed by their actions a greater faith in the system than they expressed with their words, and the American people should listen up.
Further, in races for top state elections officials, only in Indiana did a member of the 2020 election-denying “America First” slate win the office of secretary of state.
While many Americans continue to believe that elections can be run more smoothly — and we have agreed — in practice very few really believe the system is so compromised that it can’t be trusted. That’s a hopeful sign for a political system that had seemed more fragile than at any time in the recent past.
This also means that it’s time for Democrats to retire their claims that small-d democracy itself depends on electing capital-d Democrats to office. That rhetoric raises the temperature and the fear that they’re willing to use anti-democratic means to protect democracy. The system worked, and the threats to it have been shown to be mostly rhetorical.
The 2022 elections should close the book on the 2020 elections. Now it’s time to actually govern.