HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans are warming up to Doug Mastriano.
When he crushed a nine-person field to win the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania governor in May, some in the party warned that Mastriano’s far-right views on everything from abortion to the 2020 presidential election would squander an otherwise attainable seat in a critical battleground state. But now, as the general election season intensifies, the GOP machinery is cranking up to back Mastriano’s campaign and attack his Democratic rival, Josh Shapiro.
Mastriano spoke in Aspen, Colorado, last week at an event with donors sponsored by the Republican Governors Association. At the GOP’s “Rally at the Rock” campaign event in northern Pennsylvania earlier this month, the independently elected state treasurer, Stacy Garrity, introduced Mastriano as “our next governor.” County offices and booths are festooned with his campaign signs and he spoke at this month’s closed-door state party meeting. And on Wednesday, a pair of top party officials are hosting a fundraiser for Mastriano.
In one of America’s most politically divided states, the GOP’s embrace of a candidate who opposes abortion rights with no exceptions, spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection risks alienating moderate party members. But some Republicans say they’re duty bound to get behind their party’s nominee.
“When you play team sports, you learn what being part of a team means,” said Andy Reilly, the state GOP’s national committeeman and co-host of Wednesday’s fundraiser. “Our team voted for him in the primary and, no matter how you slice it, his philosophies are much better to run the state than a career politician like Josh Shapiro.”
November’s election has major implications.
Working with a Republican-controlled Legislature, Mastriano could dramatically scale back access to abortion. And he would be able to appoint Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, giving him tremendous power over elections in a state that is often decisive in presidential campaigns.
Perhaps with that in mind, some Republicans have been tentative about vocally supporting Mastriano.
The Republican Governors Association — typically a source of millions of dollars for GOP campaigns — has done next to nothing to publicly praise Mastriano, as it has other Republican nominees.
But that could change as the fall campaign nears. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, the RGA’s co-chairman, told CNN this month that he would not rule out helping Mastriano and suggested that the group would help if Shapiro appears beatable.
“The job of the RGA is to elect Republican governors, and that’s what we’re going to do in this cycle,” Ducey said.
Mastriano and Shapiro are vying for the right to succeed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is constitutionally term-limited after entering office in 2015.
Shapiro, the state’s two-time elected attorney general, unified the party behind his candidacy, running an uncontested primary campaign and rolling up strong fundraising numbers. He also has ties to some prominent Republicans in Philadelphia and its heavily populated suburbs.
His campaign recently rolled out a list of onetime Republican elected officials who are endorsing him, while another group of Republicans have started a group called Republicans for Shapiro to sway votes against Mastriano.
Mastriano dismissed them as “has-beens.”
Still, the party’s traditional donor community around the state is — by many accounts — sitting on their wallets at a time when Mastriano is badly lagging Shapiro in fundraising. That includes prominent Philadelphia-area donors and fundraisers who long have financed Republican campaigns but know Shapiro well and likely reject Mastriano’s socially conservative politics.
“That’s going to make it much tougher for Mastriano to break into that southeastern Pennsylvania kind of money, that group of…
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