Doug Mastriano—the Jan. 6 insurrectionist, Christian white nationalist, and Donald Trump-loving conspiracy theorist who Republicans picked to run for governor of Pennsylvania—is having trouble raising money. Trailing in the polls and adamantly refusing to talk to the mainstream press, Mastriano has premised his campaign thus far on relatively small meet-and-greet sessions with fellow knuckledraggers hailing mainly from the Commonwealth’s deep-red hinterlands. These spit-sharing sessions all share a similar theme; as southeastern Pennsylvania’s public broadcasting affiliate WHYY explains, they invariably devolve into braying whinefests about “election fraud and immigration, culture war flashpoints like transgender women and girls playing sports, and the specter of since-ended pandemic mitigation measures.” And while these antics may impress the GOP base, they are generally repulsive to the sensibilities of suburban voters any candidate in the Commonwealth needs to secure the governor’s mansion.
Mastriano has not impressed mainstream conservative media either. On Frida,y columnist George Will, writing for The Washington Post, called his candidacy a “special danger to the nation,” citing Mastriano’s boast that his administration would be empowered to disregard the results of any election that he deems improperly decided. Will noted that Mastriano’s absolute refusal to permit pregnant people the right to terminate their pregnancies for any reason, as well as his opposition to marriage equality, further demonstrates Mastriano’s stark alienation from the views of most voters.
Mastriano reported a mere $400,000 in his campaign war chest in June, compared to Democratic candidate Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s take of $13.5M during the same time frame. And after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, chair of the Republican Governors Association (RGA), hinted last week that the campaign might be a “lost cause, former Trump lawyer and current Mastriano “legal advisor” Jenna Ellis decided to take action. And she did it the way her Orange Master taught her: by instigating a harassment campaign via Twitter—but her target this time was the GOP establishment.
As reported by William Bender and Julia Terruso, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer (article also available here):
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
And if you’re Jenna Ellis — legal adviser to Doug Mastriano, social-media maven, and election-denier extraordinaire — they include siccing your 890,000 Twitter followers on the Republican Governors Association to demand money for your candidate’s campaign.
Assuming half of Ellis’ Twitter followers are simply Russian bots, that still meant providing almost a half million of Trump’s rabid QAnon-worshipping base with the phone number for the RGA’s general counsel, Jessica Furst Johnson, and the email for the RGA.
“The Republican Governors Association would rather see an insane extremist Democrat win in Pennsylvania than have a Republican they can’t control. Doug Mastriano’s race is MORE CRITICAL THAN EVER for freedom from BOTH SIDES!! Contact the RGA @GOPGovs and tell them DOUG FOR GOV!!” the disgraced attorney wrote in a tweet she deleted after just 36 minutes.
It’s odd that Ellis thought goading an abusive gaggle of Trump supporters to harass an organization dedicated to doling out much-coveted funding for Republican candidates nationwide was the smart thing to do. After all, her candidate has, as the Inquirer article points out, already expressed his disdain for the Republican establishment. Of course, this flight of inspiration on Ellis’ part lasted only for a short time before she hit “delete tweet.” Yet there’s no telling how much abuse—or what sort— the RGA had to tolerate, since the organization refused to comment for Bender and Terruso’s story.
But as Gov. Ducey explained last week, it’s really only about the candidate’s ability to move his numbers, and thus far, that just hasn’t happened enough to justify those kinds of outlays for Mastriano.
“We’re watching Pennsylvania very closely,” Ducey said last week during a forum hosted by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. He added that while he sees the contest as a “pickup opportunity,” his group generally does not fund “lost causes” or “landslides.”
Meanwhile, the Inquirer article’s authors observe, Mastriano continued to bemoan his lack of financial support from “national level Republican organizations” on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast (in which he bragged again about appointing someone who could refuse to certify a Democrat in the 2024 presidential election). He also posted a rather morose and depressing appeal on Facebook.
Transcript:
Anyway, talk is cheap. Obviously you heard me on Bannon today, really not finding a lot of support from the national level Republican organizations. And so we’re calling upon people across Pennsylvania and the United States of America to give directly to our campaign.
Giving through these large groups, we have not seen much assistance coming from them and we’re 49 days out, and so, chasing dreams in other states where I don’t think we have a real shot at winning is ridiculous to me. Now Pennsylvania, we’ve been fighting hard, we want out state back. We are the Keystone State, this is a most important race in our nation, and maybe we have a little bias because we are Pennsylvanian, we live here, this is our state.
Maybe because of the history, but no, we are the Keystone State. Our nation was born in Pennsylvania, we have a special promise and blessing upon us. It is my conviction that we get Pennsylvania right on Nov. 8, choose freedom over oppression, choose liberty over bondage.
As Mastriano himself points out, there are still seven weeks for the Republican establishment to decide to spend their money on a candidate that even George Will describes as “unhinged.” And as Will himself points out, there’s no arguing with the fact that what happens here in my home state of Pennsylvania—where American democracy was born—will have huge implications for the rest of the nation: “This fall ... the state will matter more than any other as its voters’ choice of governor will either imperil or reassure the nation that began here.”
With those implications in mind, it’s worth paying a visit to Josh Shapiro’s campaign website to see how he plans to “get Pennsylvania right on Nov. 8” and beyond. If you like what you see, consider donating or signing up to volunteer.