This is the GOP frontrunner in for the upcoming gubernatorial election in Pennsylvania:
Last week in Gettysburg, a far-right Christian conference called “Patriots Arise for God and Country” drew State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a GOP front-runner for Pennsylvania governor; Teddy Daniels, a candidate for lieutenant governor; Maryland gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox; Liz Harrington, a spokesperson for former President Donald Trump; and former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis.
About 25 minutes into the two-day conference, organizers played a video claiming the world is experiencing a “great awakening” that will expose “ritual child sacrifice” and a “global satanic blood cult.”
Followers of QAnon believe a global cabal of Democrats and elites are trafficking children for sex and engaged in other demonic activity — but that all of this will soon be exposed. Images associated with the conspiracy theory were on display during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack.
The video showed Friday featured a kind of greatest hits of conspiracy theories that have circulated for decades. It showed images of the Twin Towers collapsing on 9/11 — with the label “false flags.” It claimed John F. Kennedy was assassinated because he “knew too much” and posed a “high risk of cabal exposure,” that vaccines amount to “genocide therapy,” and that Hitler faked his death. It offered other conspiracy theories about the atomic bomb, the Spanish flu, 5G, the 2008 financial crisis — and, of course, the 2020 election.
But, the video said, it is “game over” for the darkness, and thousands will be jailed and executed. It showed images of a guillotine.
“All of the systems the darkness had in place to control us are going to crumble,” the narrator says, as the video shows a view of outer space. “The fear, the corruption, the greed, the wars and rumors of wars, the hate, the technology, media propaganda, the child trafficking and the slave economy — all of these control systems will crumble down.”
Mastriano, who has consistently led polls of the sprawling Republican primary field, raised money for his campaign at the event. The organizers auctioned a print of Trump for $4,000 — with proceeds apparently going to Mastriano.
Again, Mastriano is a frontrunner in the primary:
A new WHTM/Emerson College Polling/The Hill poll shows Doug Mastriano leading the Republican field of candidates for Governor.
Mastriano, a State Senator representing Pennsylvania’s 33rd District, leads with 16.2% over Lou Barletta at 12.4%.
Mastriano and Barletta were the only candidates to receive double-digit support with 48.8% of the 371 Republican voters undecided.
Franklin and Marshall College’s latest poll also confirms this:
Twelve percent of respondents said they would vote for McSwain if the election were held today, while 15% said they would vote for state Sen. Doug Mastriano.
Mastriano has led efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, while Trump this week asked voters to not elect McSwain, whom Trump called a “coward” who did “absolutely nothing” about disproven claims of widespread election fraud.
“Trump’s slap-down of McSwain certainly won’t help him among Trump voters,” in a state where the former president still has a lot of sway, Yost said.
By the way, I wonder if any of this will come up in tonight’s debate. Doubtful but who knows. By the way, one of Mastriano’s Republican constituents had this to say about him in PennLive op-ed:
On Nov. 28, 2020, as most of us were eating Thanksgiving leftovers, Mastriano tweeted a strategy to have the state legislature appoint a pro-Trump slate of electors for Pennsylvania (in other words, to overturn Pennsylvania’s vote based on unsubstantiated voter fraud claims). That tweet has earned Mastriano a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Speaking of Jan. 6, Mastriano’s campaign spent over $3,300 to send buses of people to Washington, DC on that day. Mastriano was even outside the Capitol. He claims he didn’t cross police lines, but he showed us when he stepped onto one of the buses he paid for that he doesn’t have the judgment to be our governor.
Mastriano also wants to audit Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results. If you want an idea of how this might go, look to Maricopa County, Ariz., where an audit by the crackpot group “the Cyber Ninjas” left county taxpayers on the hook for $3.2 million.
You may be wondering if an audit here in Pennsylvania will turn up reams of previously undisclosed voter fraud.
Don’t get your hopes up. The bogus Maricopa County audit actually grew Joe Biden’s margin by 360 votes.
If Mastriano is concerned about auditing things, I’d suggest he start with his own campaign’s books. His initial campaign finance report disclosed $15,000 in spending, which he revised upward to $215,000. Whoops!
But by all means, let’s let him audit our elections.
Mastriano also wants to cancel state contracts with “compromised voting machine companies,” particularly Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion machines are used in 14 Pennsylvania counties and were the subject of conspiracy theories that they flipped votes to President Biden away from President Trump in the 2020 election.
These claims are not just false. They’re the subject of a defamation lawsuit by Dominion against Fox News and One America News Network—but Mastriano wants to make state policy around them. Not “governor” material if you ask me.
Last but certainly not least, Mastriano wants to appoint a new secretary of the commonwealth. He already pushed a plan to overturn the lawful certified election in Pennsylvania in 2020, and now he wants to sit in the governor’s chair for the 2024 election.
If all of this sounds bad to you, I urge you to take Mastriano seriously. He’s not some gadfly candidate, and he has as good a chance as anyone to win the Republican primary on May 17.
Meanwhile, on Team Blue:
Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general who is running for governor, launched his first TV ads on broadcast stations statewide on Tuesday and the first thing he mentioned is his affinity for the Jewish Sabbath.
“Whether my day starts here in Bloomsburg, Uniontown, or anywhere in Pennsylvania, I make it home Friday night for Sabbath dinner because family and faith ground me,” Shapiro said, as the camera zooms in on a pair of challah breads under a cloth on the Shapiro family table.
Pennsylvania is a swing state that narrowly went for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Democrats do well in the two major metropolitan centers, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but in order to win must appeal to conservative values in the state’s center — where Shapiro hopes his emphasis on family and faith may resonate.
The Democratic Primary is May 17th and you have to be a registered Democrat to vote in that primary. You have until May 2nd to register to vote. Click here to register to vote.
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