Mastriano was introduced by activists demanding an audit of the 2020 election, circulating ballot petitions to ban electronic voting machines in their counties and describing the search warrant at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago Club for classified documents as the onset of totalitarianism. The candidate himself drew some of his loudest cheers and applause for recounting his leading role in trying to reject the election results in Pennsylvania and promising to use his powers as governor to change the state’s voting procedures.
“The Democrats talk about how everything they don’t like reminds them of some dictator from the ’30s, or everything they don’t like is a danger to ‘democracy,’ ” Mastriano said with a scoff. “We’re a constitutional republic.”
Since winning the primary in May with 44 percent of the vote — after snagging a last-minute endorsement from former president Donald Trump and surviving a late scramble to consolidate the vote against him — Mastriano has eschewed the typical path of reorienting his campaign toward the middle. Instead, he has held fast to the same issues that drove his rise after attending the Stop the Steal rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and openly embracing Christian nationalism.
But many Republicans say Mastriano’s focus on base voters has made it hard for him to raise money and broaden his appeal, hurting the party’s chances in November. Mastriano’s latest campaign finance report showed less than $400,000 as of June, and the campaign hasn’t bought any airtime on local TV. He only grants interviews to friendly outlets such as right-wing talk radio and the podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon. The campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
And Mastriano has yet to secure support from the deep-pocketed Republican Governors Association, which did not hesitate to say it would back Kari Lake — another far-right candidate who echoes Trump’s election falsehoods — after she won the Arizona gubernatorial primary this month. The RGA did not respond to requests for comment.
“He has to come up with a Hail Mary pass to pull this out,” said former Republican congressman Tom Marino, who supported runner-up Lou Barletta in the gubernatorial primary.
Mastriano’s Democratic opponent, state attorney general Josh Shapiro, has spent the summer hammering him with ads painting him as an extremist on issues from elections to abortion and a threat to Pennsylvanians’ individual freedoms. Recent polls have showed Shapiro leading, but Democrats remain on guard as President Biden’s favorability remains low.
The stakes in the Pennsylvania governor’s race are especially high since the winner would have substantial powers overseeing the 2024 presidential election in a critical battleground. Mastriano has said he wants to decommission the state’s voting machines and force all voters to re-register — an idea that conflicts with federal law.
His campaign is being advised by former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, and Mastriano has promised to pick a chief elections officer who’s well known in the denier movement that rejects the outcome of the 2020 election, though he hasn’t provided a name. He said his campaign wants to recruit 20,000 volunteers to station two…
Read More: Doug Mastriano bets he can become Pa. governor without moderating his Trumpian stances
