Who is Doug Mastriano, the extreme right-winger who has won the Republican race in Pennsylvania?

By Allan

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican who built a large following by seeking to overturn President Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania, is the GOP candidate for governor, our sister network NBC News on Tuesday.

After 10:30 pm ET, Mastriano led his rivals by more than 20 points.

He will face Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro, state attorney general, in November, who ran unopposed.

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Should Mastriano, who received a last-minute endorsement from former President Donald Trump on Saturday, prevail in the general election, he could appoint a secretary of state to oversee the election.

He has promised that his election would "reset" the state's voter rolls so everyone "would have to re-register."

The message of Mastriano's winning campaign intertwined Christian nationalism, electoral denialism, and the rejection of policies to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several Republicans have raised concerns that he is too extreme to beat Shapiro in November, and some state GOP leaders have worked behind the scenes in the past week to consolidate a large field around another candidate in hopes of uniting the non-mastrian vote.

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In a speech at his election night rally, Mastriano declared that his campaign "has no place for hatred, intolerance and fanaticism," adding that his movement is "under siege" from opponents and members of the media outlets that don't "like groups that believe in certain things, and paint us with these horrible epithets".

"Everybody in this room can believe what they want, and they shouldn't be made fun of for it," he said.

“And that includes us on the Republican side.

And I will not tolerate mocking of me, my wife, my family or what we believe or anyone in this room.

This is America,” he added.

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State Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman and former Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pennsylvania, dropped out of the race and endorsed former Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pennsylvania.

Other contenders, including businessman Dave White and former federal prosecutor Bill McSwain, remained in the race.

"It's one of those things where it seems very clear that there are two candidates, that the polls have been very consistent about who the candidates are," David La Torre, a former Corman adviser who supported Barletta, said before the polls closed. after Corman finished his candidacy.

"But for some reason, people make their own decisions to stay in the races, despite the math," he added.

Mastriano suggested at a rally this month that his administration would go so far to the right as to make other conservative governors, like Florida's Ron DeSantis, look middling. 

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a candidate for governor, speaks to the media in Philadelphia on April 5, 2022. Matt Rourke / AP

“Do you think Ron DeSantis is good?

Hobbyist,” Mastriano snapped, adding, “We love you, Ron, but this is Pennsylvania.

This is where the light of liberty was lit in 1776, where this nation was born,” he recalled.

Dave Ball, the chairman of the Washington County GOP, said that even a couple of months ago, he would have judged Mastriano as "basically a non-entity."

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“But Barletta and White and McSwain and the rest of the people that were in the governor's group, no one established control.

And when you don't have a leader, there's a void, and someone is going to fill that void,” he explained.

Mastriano, a longtime Army colonel, has made headlines for preventing journalists, including those from our sister network NBC News, from covering his events.

An NBC News reporter attempted to attend a rally this month that was advertised online, but was told by a campaign adviser that "we already have adequate coverage" and "we're taking care of it."

On the spot, a security guard demanded the reporter leave, saying the act was "private." 

The rally was broadcast on one of Mastriano's Facebook pages, where he has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, dwarfing those of his competitors.

The campaign aide who told NBC News he couldn't cover the rally was Grant Clarkson, who the network later reported was present on restricted grounds at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has denied entering on Capitol Hill.

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Mastriano himself was outside the Capitol to protest Trump's loss before a pro-Trump mob ransacked the building and sent lawmakers running in hopes of delaying the recount of the Electoral College votes that determine Biden's victory. .

He has said that he left the Capitol before the riots.

The video appears to show Mastriano walking past police barricades on the north side of the Capitol just after they were raped.

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Meanwhile, his campaign paid to transport people to Washington for the rally that preceded the riots, and he was cited by the House Jan. 6 committee this year for his efforts to send alternative constituents to Congress.

All of this increased Mastriano's credibility among Republicans who rejected Biden's victory, as well as providing him with a national platform to advance his cause.

“Two years ago it seemed unthinkable that Americans would storm the Capitol building from within to try to undo our democracy.

Today, someone who helped organize January 6th became the Republican candidate for governor in perhaps the most swing state in the country, running a campaign that practically promised to nullify our democracy from within,” he lamented. In a statement Ian Bassin, co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy, a non-profit group that defends the right to vote and democracy.

“Anyone who still doesn't see how the Republic of the United States may not make it to its 250th birthday needs to open their eyes,” he added.

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Mastriano began to build a substantial lead over the deep field of contenders in the past month and then expanded over the weekend after he secured Trump's endorsement.

Last month, the former president got involved in the primary by telling voters not to vote for McSwain.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano gives a victory speech at his election night party at The Orchards on May 17, 2022 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

At an event for Barletta on Saturday, former Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pennsylvania, asked, "Where the hell is the loyalty?"

He noted that he and Barletta, whom he endorses, were the first House members to publicly support Trump's candidacy in his first campaign.

"I'm not going to support anyone who has your support right now, Mr. Trump's," Marino said.

Marino's frustration points to the difficulties Mastriano may have in uniting Republicans.

"It will be difficult to unite the party," said La Torre, who announced that he will not support Mastriano.

“I'm not sure Mastriano wants to join.

It's his way or the highway.

And that's no way to build a big Republican tent in Pennsylvania."

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Mastriano may also have been buoyed when neither candidate received an endorsement from the state party — marking the first time in more than four decades that it had not endorsed a gubernatorial candidate — a decision Mastriano praised in a recent Newsmax interview.

Before the vote, Shapiro touted Mastriano in a state ad saying a Mastriano win would be "a win for what Donald Trump stands for."

Shapiro explained to NBC News that he did so because Mastriano was likely to win and he wanted to get ahead of the general election campaign.

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In a statement after Mastriano's victory, Shapiro called him "a dangerous extremist who wants to take away our freedoms."

“The contrast in this election couldn't be clearer: Doug Mastriano wants to ban abortion with no exceptions, restrict voting rights and spread conspiracy theories, and destroy the union way of life for working people in Pennsylvania,” he said.

“Mastriano wants to dictate how Pennsylvanians live their lives: that is not freedom,” he added.

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Despite his good faith with the far right, Mastriano has received heat from his right flank over his vote in 2019 for a bill that expanded mail-in voting in Pennsylvania.

The measure came under increased scrutiny after Biden narrowly won the state, and Mastriano and other GOP lawmakers who supported him now say Democrats "hijacked" the program.

He also faced criticism for his advocacy, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, for the state to roll back privacy protections and reveal information about people who have contracted the coronavirus.

In a statement following Mastriano's victory, Dave Rexrode, executive director of the Republican Governors Association, lashed out at Shapiro and Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, adding that the association "remains committed to participating in competitive gubernatorial contests in which our support can have an impact on defending our incumbents and expanding our majority this year."

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Ball noted that as a Republican official, he is responsible for getting Republicans elected no matter the circumstances.

"Whoever is nominated, he is our favorite candidate," he said.

“And we have to approach it that way.

If Mastriano is the candidate for governor, then he is our favorite candidate, because the alternative is Shapiro.

That is what you have to convince people, ”he concluded.