On the day after he captured the Republican nomination for governor with 42% of the primary vote, state Sen. Doug Mastriano claimed a mandate and said he would begin reaching out to non-GOP voters.
“We do have a mandate,” Mastriano told conservative media personality Stephen Bannon, a former chief strategist for former President Donald Trump, in a video posted on Mastriano’s campaign Facebook page.
Mastriano noted that he won 55 of 67 Pennsylvania counties and bested eight opponents, “so now the next step is to expand this base.”
That would mean consolidating gains among Republicans and appealing to moderate Democrats and independents, said Mastriano, who added that he began transitioning his campaign in the last week to “general election mode” by making stops in Democratic areas such as Pittsburgh and Erie.
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, a Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, speaks at a primary night election gathering in Chambersburg, Pa., Tuesday, May 17, 2022.AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
‘Most of the folks believe, as we do, in hard work and American values, what the Democrats call extreme, far right,” Mastriano said.
Mastriano said his general election campaign will focus on energy, election integrity and what he describes as “personal freedoms,” such as keeping transgendered males out of biological women’s sports and eliminating vaccine mandates for workers.
“It’s just restoring common sense and order,” he said.
At the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference’s gubernatorial forum in April, Mastriano said that his work against COVID-19 restrictions, and for school choice, vaccine mandates and election reform resonated with all types of Democrats, including many Latino voters.
“They’re on our side. That’s a false element put out there by the old establishment, ‘You know you might be too conservative for Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.’ I don’t buy that. This is not 2018,” Mastriano said last month. “We walked through the crucible together during the COVID shutdown and they saw who the leader was, who the lone voice was, who was standing up for their kids.”
BUCKING THE “ELITE”
Mastriano chuckled at the failed scheme by more mainstream Republicans to coalesce behind former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta to keep Mastriano from winning the nomination.
Those Republicans see Mastriano, a 2020 election denier who can be seen on video marching past security barricades on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, as a far-right candidate with limited appeal in a general election.
Republicans fear those limitations would eventually hand Democratic governor candidate Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, an easy win in the fall.
But, on Wednesday, Mastriano joked with Bannon about the “old establishment RINO group” that tried to keep him from winning. “It really did expose that there’s an establishment elite that wants to call the shots in Pennsylvania,” said Mastriano.
“I’m just an average American, Steve, I’m not far right,” insisted Mastriano, a retired Army colonel who said he would not have passed repeated background checks if there was a history of radicalism in his past.
“I’m not going to stand aside and let them create a narrative about me,” said Mastriano.
Pennsylvania Democrats, though, wasted no time in painting Mastriano with an extreme brush, organizing a rally in Pittsburgh Wednesday morning to kick-off a statewide “Protect Our Rights” tour highlighting Mastriano’s plan to ban abortion without any exceptions.
Berwood Yost, the director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College, said Mastriano won about 1 in 5 Republican voters and there’s a legitimate question about his ability to broaden that appeal.
The one advantage Mastriano does have, Yost said, is that 2022 is shaping up to be a good year for Republicans so Mastriano might not have to expand that support as much as he would have in the past.
“The environment will be different,” Yost said.
Mastriano, Yost said, will have to borrow a page from the Trump playbook and run up huge numbers in rural areas while hoping for lower turnout in urban areas, and, if possible, gain some suburban voters.
During the primary, Mastriano ignored the mainstream media for the most part, instead favoring right-wing outlets such as Bannon’s show or the One American News network, or simply posting his own videos on social media.
Yost said that will have to change in a race in which Mastriano says he wants to broaden his reach. “You’ve got to go beyond that to win a general election,” said Yost.
IS GOP HELP ON THE WAY?
While some Republicans were laying the blame for Mastriano’s win on the Pennsylvania Republican Party and Chairman Lawrence Tabas even before Tuesday, according to Politico, there was nothing but olive branches coming from the state GOP on Wednesday in the aftermath of Mastriano’s victory.
“The PA GOP is filled with passionate individuals and, although we don’t always agree, we always come together,” Vonne Andring, a senior advisor for the PA GOP, told PennLive.com.
“Mastriano’s primary victory was far more decisive than the mere plurality many predicted,” Andring said. “For that reason, and because voters know that Democrats like Josh Shapiro and Joe Biden are completely out of touch with every day, hardworking Americans, we believe Doug can and will win.”
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts appeared on CNN on Sunday and would not commit to the Republican Governors Association spending money to get Mastriano elected in the fall, Politico reported in the same story.
Ricketts said whoever would win the primary must be competitive and, if so, “the Republican Governors Association will be there to support Republican nominee.”
Following Mastriano’s win, RGA Executive Director Dave Rexrode released a statement targeting Gov. Tom Wolf and Shapiro, but which danced around making a commitment to financially help Mastriano in the general election.
“The RGA remains committed to engaging in competitive gubernatorial contests where our support can have an impact in defending our incumbents and expanding our majority this year,” Rexrode said.
Those tepid comments didn’t get past the Democratic Governors Association.
“Mastriano is an extremist running to undermine our democracy, ban abortion with no exceptions, and screw over workers – and the RGA’s big dodge just confirms they also know he’s too extreme for Pennsylvania,” said DGA Deputy Communications Director Sam Newton in a statement.
PennLive.com reporter Jan Murphy contributed to this story.