PHILADELPHIA — He went on the podcast hosted by former Donald Trump aide and “Stop the Steal” leader Steve Bannon.
He named a former Trump campaign lawyer who tried to overturn Pennsylvania’s election a top legal adviser to his campaign.
He has twice drawn parallels to Nazi Germany in criticizing political opponents.
And just last week, Doug Mastriano shared a meme on social media accusing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and other Democrats of “premeditated murder” over their COVID-19 policies for nursing homes.
Most Republican candidates in Pennsylvania and across the country are hammering Democrats on gas prices, stubbornly high inflation and homicides in cities like Philadelphia.
Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, hits all those themes, too. But in the five weeks since he won the May 17 primary election, Mastriano has also been sticking to the playbook that has made him a MAGA hero — making inflammatory comments about Democrats and the left, and amplifying Trump’s false election fraud claims.
There are signs that most rank-and-file Republican officials are rallying behind Mastriano.
Days after the primary, a Spotlight PA reporter spotted Mastriano in a restaurant in Harrisburg with Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, who had previously endorsed a rival.
The Senate GOP, which had banned Mastriano from attending caucus meetings, changed course and welcomed him back. And after months in which Senate leadership had effectively blocked Mastriano legislation from advancing, the chamber on June 6 voted in favor of his bill that aims to loosen rules on partisan poll watchers.
That’s despite remarks that underscore why Pennsylvania Republican insiders were nervous about Mastriano’s candidacy at the outset — and scrambled, unsuccessfully, to try to stop him from winning the primary.
After an interviewer compared investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack to the Nazis’ crackdown on civil liberties in the aftermath of the 1933 fire at the German Parliament, Mastriano said he agreed.
“I agree with the political, with the historical analogy there … using something that was very suspicious in Berlin to advance their agenda — you know, the National Socialists there. I do see parallels,” Mastriano told podcast host Ben Stein on June 10, after the Jan. 6 congressional committee held its first public hearing on prime-time television.
“We have, you know, people being publicly arrested for show to send a message,” said Mastriano, who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has been subpoenaed by the committee. “I think what we’re seeing in America now makes McCarthy in the ’50s look like an amateur.”
A tight race
Mastriano’s approach might work in November against Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general. Two polls this month show a tight race, with Shapiro’s 3- or 4-point lead within the margin of error. It’s still early in the race, and there are lots of unknowns — including how the electorate will respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade and end a constitutional right to abortion.
Both candidates have made abortion policy central to their campaigns, and Shapiro and other Democrats have already spent millions of dollars on television attacking Mastriano as an anti-abortion extremist.
Mastriano, who faces a huge cash deficit, has not started airing television ads in the general election. Outside Republican groups remain on the sidelines.
And Mastriano has shunned interviews with traditional news organizations such as newspapers and local television stations that most politicians pursue to reach the broader electorate. Instead, Mastriano has preferred to communicate directly with supporters on Facebook and given interviews with some friendly conservative outlets.
“You can’t ignore the mainstream media. … You’ve gotta reach across all venues,” said Jackie Kulback, chair of the Cambria County GOP, noting that there are some 540,000 more registered Democrats in Pennsylvania than Republicans. “Limiting yourself just to conservative media, you’re going to miss the voters you need to win in the general.”
Mastriano’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Rallying to Mastriano
Outside Harrisburg, GOP activists say voters are excited by Mastriano’s candidacy.
“Doug Mastriano is exactly what people want right now,” said Deb Betz, chair of the Northumberland County GOP. “They just have had enough.”
Vince Matteo, former chairman of the Lycoming County GOP, said Republican voters in northern Pennsylvania are rallying behind Mastriano. “No one up here wants Josh Shapiro as governor, because it’s four more years of Tom Wolf and his dictatorship,” he said.
Matteo encouraged Mastriano to focus on the economy and crime, not the 2020 election.
“I’m not downplaying electoral integrity, but that’s up to the legislature to pass laws that give people confidence,” he said.
Mastriano seems unlikely to change his focus. Earlier this month, he announced his campaign had brought on former Trump lawyer and Rudy Giuliani associate Jenna Ellis as a senior legal adviser — even as the Jan. 6 congressional committee held hearings featuring sworn testimony from former top Trump aides contradicting election fraud lies.
Giuliani, for his part, on Friday called Mastriano a “hero” for convening a November 2020 legislative gathering on election grievances and praised him for standing up to “RINOs” — so-called Republicans in name only.
“This comes along once in a generation when you get a real reformer, a Ronald Reagan or a Donald Trump or a me, who actually comes in and changes government,” Giuliani said at a campaign event in New York with Mastriano and Giuliani’s son, Andrew, who’s running for governor in that state.
And in an interview with the Epoch Times, Mastriano reiterated his plan to require all 9 million registered Pennsylvania voters to reregister: “I think that’s the best way to start restoring confidence in voting in our state.”
Constitutional scholars have said the idea flouts federal law.
At the same time, there are signs of tepid support in some corners of the GOP. While the entire Pennsylvania Republican congressional delegation issued a statement this month endorsing Republican Mehmet Oz in the U.S. Senate race, there has been no such statement about Mastriano.
Some of his remarks have caused discomfort among other Republicans on the ballot. After Mastriano doubled down on comparing U.S. gun control efforts to Adolf Hitler’s policies in Nazi Germany, U.S. House Democrats’ campaign arm issued a news release asking whether Republican congressional candidates agreed with the statement.
An official with Republican Lisa Scheller’s campaign in the competitive 7th District, where Democrat Susan Wild is the incumbent, reached out to Mastriano’s campaign after the episode, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Scheller campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Whom will donors support?
It remains to be seen whether major donors will invest in Mastriano’s campaign. He had about $400,000 in his campaign account as of June 6, compared with more than $13 million for Shapiro, who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
Mastriano last week said he had spoken with the Republican Governors Association and is “confident” he will get the group’s support. The RGA has booked airtime in several swing states but not Pennsylvania. An RGA spokesperson tied Shapiro to President Joe Biden’s agenda and said the group “will continue to closely monitor the race as voters learn more about Shapiro’s extreme positions that would leave the Commonwealth worse off.”
It also remains to be seen whether Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs — an influential conservative group that spent about $13 million backing one of Mastriano’s rivals in the primary — will get involved in the general election. The group’s president, Matt Brouillette, did not respond to a request for comment. Brouillette told the conservative outlet the Dispatch earlier this month: “We would certainly hope we could get behind a Mastriano effort, but he’s gonna have to show us that he’s viable and able to beat Josh.”
Shapiro’s campaign is expected to announce support from current and former elected Pennsylvania Republicans in the coming weeks, according to a source familiar with plans.
And several Republican insiders said they expect at least some GOP donors in Southeastern Pennsylvania to back Shapiro. William Sasso, a Republican donor and former chairman of the Philadelphia-based law firm Stradley Ronon, recently held a fundraiser for Shapiro. Shapiro is a former counsel at the firm. Sasso said he admires Shapiro’s “judgment, integrity, and his commitment to the citizens of the Commonwealth.”
But Mastriano says he’ll have enough money to win.
“We have a massive statewide movement, unlike Shapiro,” Mastriano told conservative interviewer John Fredericks on June 21. “Yes, he’s got a lot of money, but Republicans are really motivated.”
———
(Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Chris Brennan contributed to this report.)
———
