The 2022 midterms in Pennsylvania worked out extremely well for Democrats. At the top of the ticket, Attorney General Josh Shapiro trounced MAGA crackpot state Sen. Doug Mastriano 3,031,137 (56.5%) to 2,238,477 (41.7%), while a relatively weak Democrat, John Fetterman, beat an even weaker Republican, Dr. Oz, for the open Senate seat by about 5 points. Democrats won all the competitive congressional seats and won the state House by a one seat.
Mastriano— who took part in the J-6 attempted coup— leading the GOP charge was a godsend up and down the ticket for the Dems. And yesterday, Gillian McGoldrick reported that he would like to do it again— and against Shapiro again. Mastriano ran an amateur ideological race last time and might up for changing he approach next year. In 2022, “he lacked the Republican establishment’s support, raised little money, and often refused to talk to mainstream media outlets. MAGA Congressman Dan Meuser has also been talking about running. “The most important lesson that Mastriano said he learned in the recent election, “wrote McGoldrick, “was that Republican candidates need to embrace mail voting to win statewide in Pennsylvania after previously disparaging it. And he thinks he could win by utilizing mail voting, even without the support of the GOP establishment. ‘Where I fell short, and where we failed, was not just the establishment— I think I focused too much on that,’ Mastriano said. ‘Where I lost it was the mail-in votes. Me and my team did not embrace that new reality… That’s where we blew it.’ Trump’s attacks on mail ballots in 2020 deterred Republican voters from using the option then, but in 2024, Republicans made concerted efforts to increase mail voting among their voters. ‘It’s a reality we have to embrace. And had Trump not embraced it last year, he would’ve lost again,’ Mastriano said, seemingly acknowledging for the first time that Trump lost the 2020 election. ‘And that’s where I’ll win it. I won’t win it whether or not the establishment comes on board. I’ll win it because we’ll have mail-in voting stuff figured out.’”
Mastriano, a former U.S. Army colonel with top-secret clearance, built a grassroots following during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic for his resistance to business shutdowns. That support continued to grow after the 2020 presidential election as he promoted Trump’s false claims that Pennsylvania’s election results were rigged.
Mastriano remains a staunch Trump supporter today, waking up every day since the presidential inauguration “with a smile” and he believes that his possible candidacy reflects Pennsylvania’s excitement for Trump.
He has modeled some of his recent legislation off of Trump’s executive actions, such as a bill he is working on inspired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency for a Pennsylvania version of the commission led by the legislative branch and row officers.
He is also preparing legislation to allow residents to access ivermectin, an anti-malaria drug and dewormer that right-wing commentators popularized as a treatment for COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic, and has supported efforts to ban transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports.
Mastriano also has ties to Christian nationalism and opposes abortion, including exceptions for rape, incest, or health.
In the 2022 primary, the state GOP declined to endorse candidates in the gubernatorial or U.S. Senate races. This led to a crowded, nine-candidate GOP primary ballot for governor that was advantageous for Mastriano, who had built name recognition through his anti-lockdown and 2020 election efforts.
Democrats saw Mastriano and his far-right views as an easier opponent in the general election. Shapiro, who at the time was state attorney general and did not face a primary opponent, ran an ad in the GOP primary to try to ensure that he would face the right-wing senator in the general election, where he later cruised to victory.
Republican leaders predicted— too late — that Mastriano would struggle to win statewide in a general election, so they tried to stop him in an eleventh-hour attempt to coalesce around one candidate, ultimately failing with Mastriano winning 44% of the primary vote.