Headed into 2022, Pennsylvania Republicans looked at this year’s gubernatorial race with cautious optimism. Two-term Democratic incumbent Tom Wolf couldn’t run again; polls showed an appetite for change; the prevailing political winds were at the GOP’s back; and a sizable crowd of Republican contenders were gearing up for credible campaigns.
The future appeared bright. That is, until recently, when Pennsylvania Republicans’ cautious optimism turned to “panic.”
Politico reported a couple of weeks ago that GOP leaders in the Keystone State were involved in a “last-ditch, behind-the-scenes effort to stop state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a leading voice in the movement to overturn the 2020 election results, from winning the party nomination for governor in Pennsylvania.” Republicans were convinced that Mastriano’s radicalism was so over the top that he simply couldn’t run a credible race for the commonwealth’s top job.
As of last night, however, we know that the last-ditch, behind-the-scenes effort failed. NBC News reported:
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican who built a large following seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania, is the GOP nominee for governor, NBC News projected Tuesday. After 10:30 p.m. ET, Mastriano led his rivals by more than 20 points. He’ll face Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general, who ran unopposed, in November.
At this point in the vote tallies, it was not close: Mastriano, who recently received Donald Trump’s endorsement, currently leads his next closest primary rival by 24 points.
As the results came in last night, the Republican Governors Association issued a written statement that seemed rather muted, failing to say literally anything complimentary about their party’s nominee. That might be because the RGA couldn’t think of any compelling selling points.
If Mastriano’s name sounds at all familiar, we recently noted on The Rachel Maddow Show that the gubernatorial hopeful appeared at a right-wing event last month where attendees were told, among other things, that a “global satanic blood cult” would soon be exposed and that Adolf Hitler faked his death.
Ordinarily, a major party’s gubernatorial candidate would want nothing to do with such fringe radicalism. Mastriano, however, not only attended the gathering, the candidate was also awarded a sword by QAnon conspiracy theorists at the event.
It was not the only notable right-wing gathering the Pennsylvania Republican was a part of. On the contrary, Mastriano also answered Donald Trump’s call and traveled to the nation’s capital on Jan. 6, 2021.
A Washington Post report noted over the weekend, “[Mastriano] has said he attended Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, and videos show him among a crowd moving toward the Capitol as another man removes a bike rack blocking the sidewalk.”








