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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be in Pittsburgh on Friday to campaign for state Sen. Doug Mastriano, Pennsylvania's Republican gubernatorial candidate.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to stump for Doug Mastriano in Pittsburgh

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to stump for Doug Mastriano in Pittsburgh

Republican insiders in Pennsylvania have been waiting for a big show of unity around gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano since he won a harshly contested primary, and on Friday, they’ll finally get it.

Mr. Mastriano’s campaign — to this point quiet on the airwaves, out-fundraised and thriving mostly on word-of-mouth on the trail and through social media — will get a high profile, national boost from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, an increasingly popular figure in the GOP who is seen by party stalwarts as a model 2024 presidential candidate.

At the Downtown Wyndham in the late afternoon, Republicans will see Mr. Mastriano, the state senator, appear jointly at a rally with Mr. DeSantis, who’s making the trip as part of a swing to help Donald Trump-backed candidates in key electoral areas. After his Pittsburgh visit, Mr. DeSantis will head to Ohio to stump for Senate candidate J.D. Vance.

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Democrats aren’t sweating the visit, and note that their candidate, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, has a sizable lead in early polling. They’re continuing to label Mr. Mastriano an extremist — chatter that has spread to Mr. DeSantis’ home state, where faith leaders and officials on Thursday warned that if their governor associates himself with Mr. Mastriano, he’ll do irreparable damage to his reputation.

Candidates for Pennsylvania governor Doug Mastriano, left, Josh Shapiro
Julian Routh
Josh Shapiro's new ads hit Doug Mastriano for ties to antisemitic social media site Gab

Sam DeMarco, chair of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County, said the visit will bring much needed visibility to Mr. Mastriano’s campaign, and will allow the senator to tell voters he’d do many of the same things Mr. DeSantis has done in Florida, “which is getting government off the backs of the people.”

Asked what he hopes Mr. Mastriano will say with such a large national audience, Mr. DeMarco noted that he’s spoken many times to the candidate.

“In all my conversations, I recognize he’s not the fire-breathing dragon or extremist that the media or Josh Shapiro paints him to be,” Mr. DeMarco said. “I think what’s going to be nice to hear is, you’ll hear from a guy that exudes confidence and competence, and who has some great ideas that he would like to implement here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania that would improve the lives of all the citizens of the commonwealth.”

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The Shapiro campaign plans to deploy lieutenant governor candidate Austin Davis, a McKeesport state representative, on Friday to mark the visit by Mr. DeSantis, presumably to echo what the campaign has said for weeks: that Mr. Mastriano is a dangerous extremist who is unfit to be governor.

Religious leaders in Pittsburgh did it earlier this week, hitting Mr. Mastriano on his association with Gab, the social media platform deemed a “haven for extremists, conspiracy theorists and misinformation” by the Anti-Defamation League and frequented by the accused Tree of Life synagogue shooter before the 2018 massacre.

Mr. Mastriano paid $5,000 to Gab in April for “consulting services,” a sum that Gab’s founder, CEO Andrew Torba, said was for an advertising campaign on the site. The site is billed by supporters as a pro-free speech platform and an antidote to more liberal social media outlets.

In a statement last month, Mr. Mastriano said he rejects antisemitism “in any form.” He insisted that the criticisms of his Gab payment are “smears by the Democrats and the media” and an attempt to distract Pennsylvanians from the “suffering inflicted by Democrat policies.”

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, a Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, speaks at a primary night election gathering in Chambersburg on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.
Julian Routh
Doug Mastriano responds to criticisms over Gab account, removes profile from site

Citing the Gab payment among other things, Florida Democrats and faith leaders held a news conference on Thursday to urge Mr. DeSantis to cancel the trip. Rabbi Mark Winer, president of the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus, said by campaigning with the Pennsylvania senator, Mr. DeSantis is “fertilizing the soil which seeds the ugliness in America’s soul.”

Fred Guttenberg, a prominent gun safety activist who lost his daughter, Jamie, in the Parkland high school shooting in 2018, said Mr. Shapiro is a man trying to “heal the community” at a time America needs leaders. He said he spent a week with the families of the Tree of Life victims a year after the shooting to help them get through the anniversary.

“If you show up there tomorrow,” Mr. Guttenberg said, directing his words to the Florida governor, “that is a full embrace of the antisemitism which some people fear you are embracing — and we are now going to see it out in the open.”

Mr. Shapiro has used the Gab payment — and his positions on topics ranging from abortion to election reform — as evidence that Mr. Mastriano is too extreme to govern.

On Friday, Republicans are hoping to see the candidate hit back by talking about his own plans and the contrast between him and his opponent.

A veteran GOP strategist said the event with Mr. DeSantis will give Mr. Mastriano a chance to raise some much-needed money, too, and create some excitement among grassroots leaders.

Mr. Mastriano’s campaign is holding a fundraiser before the event Friday afternoon at an undisclosed location, featuring Mr. DeSantis as a special guest. A photo opp will cost individuals $10,000, according to an invitation for the event. Admission for donors is $2,500.

Mr. DeSantis “is appearing as a special guest and is not soliciting contributions,” the invitation reads.

Mr. DeMarco, like other Republicans across the country, sees Mr. DeSantis as a formidable presidential contender. Mr. DeSantis, a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor who has served as Florida’s governor since 2019, spoke at the Republican Committee of Allegheny County’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner last year, Mr. DeMarco noted in his email.

“Gov. DeSantis knows in his core who he is and what he’s fighting for,” Mr. DeMarco said when asked for his reflections from the Lincoln Dinner event.

On Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis’ radio show recently, Mr. Mastriano said Republicans need to unite as a party, and the DeSantis visit — on a tour called “Unite & Win” — is designed to do just that.

His campaign is bussing people across the state for the rally, swinging through Wescosville, Frackville and Manada Hill early Friday morning.

“We’re out-funded, obviously. The media is massively in the pocket of my opponent, working hard for him,” Mr. Mastriano said, “So it’s imperative that Republicans come together. For Ron DeSantis to kick off his Unite & Win tour in Pennsylvania — I think — is very apropos since this is where it all began in 1776.”

Pennsylvania has the “opportunity to become the Florida of the north,” Mr. Mastriano added.

The race for Pennsylvania governor will determine who succeeds outgoing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is term-limited. If Mr. Mastriano wins, he’d likely be the final piece of a government trifecta for Republicans here, assuming that the party holds its majorities in the state House and Senate.

A Fox News poll released late last month had Mr. Shapiro leading Mr. Mastriano 50% to 40%. The poll surveyed more than 900 registered voters.

First Published: August 18, 2022, 10:11 p.m.
Updated: August 19, 2022, 1:17 p.m.

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