DONEGAL, Pa. — Last week here in Westmoreland County, hours before Donald Trump flew in to rally voters for Doug Mastriano, a woman was doing yard work beside a lawn sign on Route 31 that read: “Elect Jesus for Eternal Life.”
Mastriano had presented himself as the next-best candidate — a retired Army colonel turned Republican state senator on a self-described divine mission to shatter the wall between church and state as Pennsylvania’s next governor.
Months earlier, at a far-right Christian conference called “Patriots Arise for God and Country,” where QAnon and 9/11 conspiracy theories were discussed, Mastriano had assured attendees he’d be elected.