Rich guy Dave McCormick finally confirmed this weekend that he’s considering challenging Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, but a new poll indicates that McCormick and his GOP establishment allies would first need to put in some real work to stop the party from nominating the toxic Doug Mastriano again. The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows Mastriano, who was the GOP’s disastrous nominee for governor last year, leading McCormick 42-28 in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.
PPP also tests out a scenario where Kathy Barnette, a far-right figure who took third in last year’s Senate primary, is included, but she doesn’t change much: Mastriano edges out McCormick 39-21, with Barnette at 11%. Barnette hasn’t shown any obvious interest in another Senate bid since she earned 25% in the primary for Pennsylvania’s other seat in a contest where Mehmet Oz defeated McCormick 31.2-31.1; Oz went on to lose to Democrat John Fetterman.
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Mastriano, though, said last week he was considering a campaign against Casey just months after his blowout 56-42 loss to now-Gov. Josh Shapiro, and prominent Republicans quickly made it clear how little they like that idea. Both NRSC Chair Steve Daines and the deep-pocketed Senate Leadership Fund have made it clear they want McCormick as their nominee, with Daines adding of Mastriano, “His last race demonstrated he can’t win a general.”
McCormick, for his part, hasn’t said anything about when he expects to decide on a second Senate run except that it would be “later this year.” The Washington Post, though, writes that his choice “will be heavily influenced by how much he can consolidate party support.” So far, Mastriano is the only other notable Republican who has shown any interest in running, and if he got in, well-funded conservative groups would almost certainly do everything they could to make sure he doesn’t advance out of the primary.
But if Mastriano’s detractors have polls showing him losing a primary or general election, don’t expect that data to convince him to stay out. Mastriano, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, last Tuesday tweeted out a fake polling memo that ostensibly showed him beating Casey two hours after the account that actually created it deleted its own tweet and apologized. Mastriano, though, still has those phony numbers on his account as of Monday afternoon.