PA GOV 2022: Stick a fork in it

[wbrocks67]

Civiqs has now sent me a poll twice for this race (the latest one included Oz/Fetterman too), so hopefully we'll see something public soon

[wbrocks67]

Mastriano is basically running his campaign using the same insane sh*tposting memes that your crazy aunt posts to Facebook

https://twitter.com/StephenJ_Caruso/status/1538862373183836160

[wbrocks67]

I've noticed that Shapiro is still up with positive personal ads, and the DGA is up with an anti-Mastriano abortion spot.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/letsgomathias/status/1540084673707220993

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/tripgabriel/status/1541777210553638913

[wbrocks67]

Lean R. It is truly astonishing how despite hosting a litany of individuals who either hold degrees in or are academically pursuing philosophy, law, psychology, political science, sociology, or some other liberal arts discipline, this blog cannot quite wrap its head around the historically proven fact that generally speaking, people can accept fascism and chauvinism if the purveyors of such can convince them inflation will go away.

Mastriano hasn't even focused on those issues though? What also could be his downfall of his own making is his OWN focus on issues like abortion, 2020 fraud, re-registered voters, rather than actual kitchen table issues.

[wbrocks67]

Shapiro’s campaign, with $13 million in the bank and two ads running on television about Mastriano and abortion, said he raised about $500,000 from Friday to Sunday, his best fund-raising pace in the race. And 70% of those contributions came from first-time donors, a spokesperson said.

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/clout/roe-wade-abortion-congress-fund-raising-campaigns-midterm-20220701.html

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/PhillyInquirer/status/1544632011528323074

[wbrocks67]

Do you think it's possible that Mastriano could be the Youngkin of 2022, the underdog who changes path and manages to win against all odds? PA is more conservative than VA but I think the dynamics could be similar because of how polarizing Mastriano was during the primary.

When did Youngkin "change paths"? I'm pretty sure he always tried the "moderate" shtick since before he was even nominated.

Mastriano has not tried to "moderate" since the primary, and has since double and tripled down on what he's said before.

[wbrocks67]

I think its pretty uncontroversial to say now that Mastriano has exceeded everyone's expectations.

Yes, if only because there were none.

Most were expecting him to have no chance and lose in a blowout. Now it looks like he's running a competitive race and a good general election campaign.

I'm sorry, this is completely delusional. In a severely objective sense, just no. Maybe you should start reading this thread because we've been posting the insane things he has said and done since the primary.

I'm not sure in what alternate universe this man is running a "good general election campaign" and I can't imagine even an R hack admitting that.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/chwolfson/status/1547364003428683777

[wbrocks67]

+ this. You know it's bad when they go from endorsing Trump in 2020 and Barnette in 2022 to a D in this race

https://twitter.com/JuliaManch/status/1547294392939171840

[wbrocks67]

I will say this, with Mastriano not polling as horribly as we thought, it is obvious this race would be likely R with any normal republican.

Not necessarily. The polling we've gotten is about a month old at this point, and for a bit after the primary, most voters likely only saw Mastriano as a generic R since he was rather unknown to most people.

That's why I'd like to see some fresh polling post-Roe and with ads having been run the last month to see if there is any change.

[wbrocks67]

I will say this, with Mastriano not polling as horribly as we thought, it is obvious this race would be likely R with any normal republican.

Shapiro is a uniquely strong candidate. He has received more votes than any other statewide candidate in PA history in any race, including POTUS.
...

By this you mean he very slightly outperformed the Democratic ticket in a high-turnout race after years of population growth. He won by under 5 points (edit: as an incumbent) against a no-name. Let's not waste breath pretending he's Bob Casey Sr. or John Heinz or something.

The race will be decided by statewide partisan trends.

(edit: It's also true to note that Shapiro ran behind both Torsella and DePasquale, in terms of both margin and trend, in 2016. The Shapiro mythos has gotten ridiculous.)

Sure, but Torsella lost to a no-name and Shapiro didn't. That counts for something.

Exactly. All the Rs in 2020 were no names, especially Stacy Garrity. She was just as bad as Heidelbaugh and DeFoor was a nobody too. They still won, yet Heidelbaugh lost by 5 while Trump lost by 1.

Not to mention 2016, Shapiro was not an incumbent and was fresh statewide.

Also of note, DePasquale was an incumbent in 2016, while Shapiro's opponent was John Rafferty, who is a bit of institution in PA, at least in SEPA.

It's hilarious to me that people just can't admit that clearly Shapiro is a very good candidate, who has had good electoral success, especially outperforming Biden in a lot of interesting areas in 2020.

[wbrocks67]

Q2 fundraising here will certainly be interesting.

For Q1, Shapiro raised $4.5M and had $16M COH. Mastriano raised $373K and had $1.1M COH

[wbrocks67]

While Shapiro is a stronger candidate than the generic Dem, he is still overrated as a candidate

Exactly. Barely beat a nobody in 2020, but I guess that means unstoppable in Atlas Speak.

He outran Biden in a year where most dems were weaker than him. And Torsella literally lost to a nobody. You can't just discount those facts

Not saying I am but winning by 4.6% against a nobody when it should've been a blowout on Shapiro's part (winning by a likely or safe margin) isn't that impressive (most showed a 10-12 pt win for Shapiro).

LMAO the revisionist history here. We barely had a few polls for the AG race in 2020 and most were purely high just bc of Shapiro's name rec (and I don't think many had him that much higher than 50-52 or something?

Even someone who is strong electorally was not going to have a "blowout" in Pennsylvania in 2020. I mean, y'all are really just grasping at straws now.

The fact that the facts are getting discounted here and people can't just admit Shapiro is a good candidate is frankly very odd to me. Heidlebaugh was quite literally on the same page as Garrity. Torsella lost to Garrity. Yet Shapiro beat Heidelbaugh by nearly 5%. I'd say that should be case enough.

[wbrocks67]

Yea, Mastriano is gonna win
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1548389756098199552?s=20&t=-7aKk1pZ09DWDW...

I hate to say it, but this isn't a good sign for Shapiro no matter how you interpret it.

what isn't a "good sign"? she was literally in town for a separate event and stopped into see his campaign.

you are insufferable

[wbrocks67]

I am becoming increasingly convinced that we should implement a forum-wide ban on people not from PA commenting on PA races. It is clear that none of you have any idea what you're talking about.

The sheer ignorance of the 2020 stuff really gets me. I'm like, y'all want to say Heidelbaugh was a nobody but Stacy Garrity (who people like me even had no idea who she was) wasn't? Like come on now. Let's be real.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/JuliaTerruso/status/1549002883592486913

[wbrocks67]

One Democratic internal poll shared with POLITICO showed that Mastriano’s favorable-unfavorable rating fell from 24-29 in early May to 33-46 in early July — an 8-point drop. Shapiro’s rating went from 43-31 to 52-29 in the same survey.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/19/mastriano-pennsylvania-governor-race-00046423

This is why I'd like to see more public polling, especially post-Roe. We haven't gotten anything since mid-June. Since then, Roe has obviously become one of the biggest issues in this race, and Shapiro/Dems have been up on TV non-stop to define Mastriano while Mastriano has been completely silent.

[wbrocks67]

I am becoming increasingly convinced that we should implement a forum-wide ban on people not from PA commenting on PA races. It is clear that none of you have any idea what you're talking about.

The sheer ignorance of the 2020 stuff really gets me. I'm like, y'all want to say Heidelbaugh was a nobody but Stacy Garrity (who people like me even had no idea who she was) wasn't? Like come on now. Let's be real.

Yeah, I'm not sure how much better an AG candidate can do than the candidate for President in a state like PA, but it appears users wouldn't be impressed unless Shapiro ran 5-6 points ahead of Biden.

I frankly wouldn’t be impressed in any way that affected my perception of this race unless it was more like 10-15. Slight variations in a single cycle tell me nothing about another higher-profile open race four years later. Shapiro is well-liked but not Casey Sr. or Charlie Baker (both incumbents).

Yeah sorry, this is completely unrealistic for a state like PA.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/PhillyInquirer/status/1550264203679768576

[wbrocks67]

Not sure what Mastriano is speaking of here, in an interview with Fox, Kilmeade says "you just told me that there is a poll out of Pittsburgh that has you in the lead..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRWMrY9CSqw

[wbrocks67]

Still also waiting for Q2 fundraising for both Shapiro and Mastriano, anyone know why it's on a different schedule than the Senate/House?

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1551709231488929793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...