Unlike the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate Republican Primary Election, the Governor's race was 20 point victory for the Doug Mastriano over Lou Barletta and all the other candidates in the race.
The problem for many Republican primary candidates is that the cloud of the 2020 Election results fall out took up all the air giving no candidate other than the ones who had very clear position on it in Pennsylvania. The front runners in the Governor's race, who got 70% of the Republican vote, believed that the 2020 election was stolen, a belief that the media and establishment Republican label as "The Big Lie". Much to the chagrin of the establishment Republican's and many in the news media, the 2020 elections still brings more people out to people who believe in 'The Big Lie". The big problem for both parties is that 2020 Election drama has yet to wane in its popularity, making Trump the center of the election again in 2022. Now it is to see, if this playing up Trump will bring the Democrats to the polls in the midterms over the economy.
The polling again was way off in these elections as always. Republican side the polls gave Doug Mastriano a 10 point margin, he won by 20 points.
So how well did the Republicans do in comparison to the Democrats in bringing out the voter in Pennsylvania 2022 Governor Primary?
The enthusiasm was greater for the Republican party which had 1.32 Million voters cast a ballot for them over the Democrats 1.22M where the Republican's edged out Democrats by 3.8 points in participation for the Governor's Race.
Looking at the 2020 Presidential primary for perspective, some of the counties have flipped RED because of more participation. There is also a 11% Bernie Sander's voters whose impact was added into the Democrat 2020 primary vote. But what is troubling is the fact that the Democrat party had 300K more votes in the 2020 Primary at 1.5M (including Bernie Sander's vote) than the 2022 primary at 1.2M. This indicates that state had more Blue enthusiastic voters in 2020 than in 2022. The story is in reverse for the Republican's which shows up more RED in the map but an increase in participation in voters from 1M in 2020 primary to 1.3M in the primary.
Comparing the above 2022 Governor map, to the 2020 Presidential map, more counties have turned RED highlighting fact that more Republicans came to vote in the primary than the Democrats in the areas that turned RED.
The Republican side, comparing it to the 2020 general elections, it means an +3.8 point and -1.2 point downward movement for Democrats, gives the Republican's a 5 point advantage based on data.
How did President Trump's endorsement help Doug Mastriano in comparison to the other republican candidates in the Pennsylvania Primary?
Pennsylvania state senate majority leader Doug Mastriano has been quite vocal about the Pennsylvania Primary right since the day after the election where he played a key role in having a public hearing in the senate about the what he considered issues with the 2020 election. According to runner up, Lou Barletta mail ballots allowed fraud in 2020. He mocked mail voting, stating that dead people have been voting in Pennsylvania all of their lives and now they don't have to leave the cemetery to vote in a debate, whose public opinion of the 2020 matches Mastriano. Both requested a full "Election Audit". The major difference for Doug Mastriano was Trump's endorsement and his public stance in November 2020.
Trump's impact on the election was clearly felt by Bill McSwain, who raised the most amount of money for his campaign, but was only been able to win, a Blue Chester county. In counties, where Trump dominated in 2020 (80% or more votes) like Juniata, Fulton he got less than 10% of the vote. He came in a distant 3rd for all the money he raised and spent on the election could not overcome his what now seems a unwinnable position on not wanting to do an Audit on Pennsylvania 2020 results. Ohio Senate race had the same scenario where the candidate who as per FEC.gov raised & spent the most money but lost the election to a Trump Endorsee with much less money raised and spent.
The so called most reputed polls had given Doug Mastriano 28 pct of the Republican primary votes , he came in at 44%. An error of over 16%, at some point, the American public already seem quite wary of these polls, but these double digit error margins could cost the candidates dearly with the amount of misallocated funds on faulty data. Case in point, Bloomberg in 2020, spent a Billion only to lose everywhere on contiguous America.
How did he do in comparison to Pennsylvania Democrat Governor nominee? Will it be easy for Doug Mastriano against Josh Shapiro?
Doug Mastriano's actual race just began. His vocal and headline grabbing stance 2020 race gave him name recognition in Pennsylvania. This can be good for in certain many counties in PA where Trump won and bad in him in blue districts. Right off the gate, in a head to head comparison with Josh Shapiro he is 25 points behind. So, if we took all the votes in the Pennsylvania Primary, Shapiro got 48% of the votes and Doug Mastriano got 23%. Shapiro was won his race uncontested but did motivate 1.2M people to show up to vote. Unlike Mastriano, he did not split his vote 3 big chunks of vote blocks.
Doug Mastriano has to work towards converting this map into 2020 General election where Trump almost won Pennsylvania or definitely like the 2022 Republican vs Democrats map below by bringing in all the Republican voters to come out to vote for him in November for him to have a shot to win. The good news for Mastriano is that the Republicans had a 5 points advantage over the Democrats in getting to the primary polls which shows enthusiasm to vote favors his side.
However, he has a lot going against him starting off with so far behind in vote difference from Josh Shapiro, the fear of people wanting to ensure the Secretary of State nomination is dangerous position to give to Doug Mastriano, which was mentioned in popular media and plenty of deep pockets that will outspend him to ensure the Secretary of State is not nominated by him ever.
Who did Trump endorse for Pennsylvania House of Representative candidates? And how did they do?
PA-08 Jim Bognet easily won his race by a 25K vote margin. Jim Bognet had competed from the same district in 2020 but lost by 3 points. All the other candidates were existing incumbents in PA.
PA-07 is slated for a rematch of 2020 where Susan Wild vs Lisa Scheller where the Democrat Susan won by 3.8 points. Lisa was able to narrowly beat veteran & small business owner Kevin Dellicker. Lisa's platform very Trumpian agenda which included included election integrity, border security, protecting right to life, empowering parents and fighting woke cancel culture.
>>>Part 3>>>> North Carolina, Idaho, Oregon Elections and Trump Endorsements
