PA-SEN 2024 megathread

[Lambsbread]

Please run McCormick PA GOP. pleassse!

Yeah, McCormick would be a dream candidate for Casey. Another rich, out of touch, elite carpetbagger against someone who actually has ties to PA.

And he absolutely couldn't run against Casey the way the GOP ran against Fetterman. The last thing you can call Bob Casey is radical. He's probably the most boring person in the United States Senate.

[Lambsbread]

Please run McCormick PA GOP. pleassse!

Yeah, McCormick would be a dream candidate for Casey. Another rich, out of touch, elite carpetbagger against someone who actually has ties to PA.

And he absolutely couldn't run against Casey the way the GOP ran against Fetterman. The last thing you can call Bob Casey is radical. He's probably the most boring person in the United States Senate.

I honestly don't even remember how the GOP ran against Casey in 2018. Like what was even Barletta's case against him?

I guess illegal immigration maybe? Barletta was insanely outraised though so I don't think he got the chance to put up many attack ads.

[Lambsbread]

Running some generic conservative Republican like Lloyd Smucker or even a Barletta retread would probably be better than McCormick. The carpet-bagger attack clearly works in a state like PA. I don't think there's anybody save Fitzpatrick (who couldn't win a primary) who would actually beat Casey though, and even then....

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Malcolm Kenyatta or Summer Lee should primary out Bob Casey

They shouldn't and won't unless they never want to run with the support of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party again.

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Why not Sean Parnell or William McSwain?

If this is true that McCormick is a carpetbagger like Oz, then go for someone like McSwain or Parnell...

Yeah why the heck wouldn't Sean Parnell run for Senate, what could possibly go wrong

[Lambsbread]

Could the Democrats be so lucky?

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/07/mastriano-weighing-senate-run-2024-00085747

Oh please let this happen. I want to see this clown get washed again so badly. Interestingly enough, though, we seem to have some common ground:

Republicans, he said, “have to embrace no-excuse mail-in voting.” That they did not is the reason he thinks he lost. He said he knew during the campaign that it was going to cost him. “It’s just so — repugnant’s the wrong word — it’s just so antithetical to how I view elections,” he said.

He was definitively not going to win even if he embraced it, but seeing such a radical shift from "mail in voting is cheating" to "we can only win if we embrace mail in voting" in just a year is pretty drastic.

[Lambsbread]

I can't stop laughing

https://twitter.com/SusquehannaPR/status/1633199659668709376
https://twitter.com/SusquehannaPR/status/1633205519753048064

Republicans: the polls are fake, don't trust them!
also Republicans: you can trust this totally not fake poll that shows me winning with 140% of the vote

[Lambsbread]

Word going around here is that McCormick has agreed to run and self-fund on the condition that he has a clear primary field. Mastriano is potentially seriously complicating this.

[Lambsbread]

Certainly very telling of the state of the PA GOP when McCormick - another Oz millionaire who has spent many years outside of PA before flying right back in - is their best shot.

Oh how I yearn for the days when the 2022 GE was going to be Costello vs. Fetterman...

[Lambsbread]

Certainly very telling of the state of the PA GOP when McCormick - another Oz millionaire who has spent many years outside of PA before flying right back in - is their best shot.

Oh how I yearn for the days when the 2022 GE was going to be Costello vs. Fetterman...

Costello being essentially pushing out of politics has been delicious though. I would also be surprised if Barnette didn't try and take another stab here...

I wouldn't be surprised if Barnette jumped in either. I feared her as a GE candidate against Fetterman, but I don't think any Republican is beating Casey no matter the environment. He's like a statewide Brian Fitzpatrick.

[Lambsbread]

Yall are just wishcasting if you think someone who lost by 14 points is going to be able to convince GOP voters that he can beat Bob Casey who while overrated imo, is clearly stronger than generic D. He's not winning the primary again.
 With that being said, Rs are going to have to find someone better than McCormick. He has no shot of actually winning this race

You are completely ignoring the fact that the PA GOP electorate is batsh*t insane. They knew who Mastriano was when he ran for Governor too. He won the primary because he's crazy, not in spite of it.

[Lambsbread]

If Mastriano chooses to run, he has the entire MAGA lane open to him.

https://twitter.com/hollyotterbein/status/1636026700793348097

Good. She scares me. She's still batsh*t insane but no doubt that a lot of Republicans would say "I can't be racist, I voted for the black lady"

[Lambsbread]

If Mastriano chooses to run, he has the entire MAGA lane open to him.

https://twitter.com/hollyotterbein/status/1636026700793348097

Good. She scares me. She's still batsh*t insane but no doubt that a lot of Republicans would say "I can't be racist, I voted for the black lady"

Was there are reason to be scared of her, if nominated? I think Casey would have easily beaten her, just has he will clobber Mastriano.

I agree that Casey probably wins pretty handily no matter the GOP nominee, but with the possibility of energized Republican turnout in a Presidential year, all bets are off when it comes to people like Barnette. She's the biggest wild card. Mastriano is decidedly unappealing to a GE electorate in PA, but we have no real evidence for Barnette other than her Congressional race which was in a pretty blue district anyway.

[Lambsbread]

This is the GOP's "star recruit"

https://twitter.com/kelsientaggart/status/1637862651085611024

Unfortunately, "supporting teachers" does not have the universal political support it once had. The base will agree with him, Democrats won't, etc. Non-issue unfortunately.

[Lambsbread]

Endorsed, I guess. Hopefully Austin Davis or Malcolm Kenyatta will be able to claim his seat next time around.

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I'm growing more and more convinced that Doug is a Democrat plant.

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Yeah that's a fake account, scrolling back beyond today's barrage it appeared to be just a standard right wing troll account. But still...I think his announcement is imminent.

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https://twitter.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1649050087476326402

Both of these tweets are so goddamn funny. Do it, Doug. Run.

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Oh, well speaking of:

https://twitter.com/dabbs346/status/1650491722223198209

If this guy isn't a plant, he might be the least self-aware person in politics.

[Lambsbread]

McCormick will steamroll him and he'll still very likely lose to Casey by high single digits

LOL, nah. Mastriano is the favorite to win the GOP nomination. He's where the party base's pulse is. I never bought McCormick being such a good candidate. He couldn't even beat Oz for god's sake. For sure this is great news for Casey.

Thats a tad revisionist. I recalled McCormick overperforming his polling average and barely losing to Oz despite the Trump endorsement of the latter. Most people expected Oz to annihilate him

This, in turn, is revisionist. The primary was always going to be close. There was extreme and legitimate fear that Kathy Barnette was going to win the primary ffs. Fox went into panic mode and insinuated she was a BLM infiltrator. McCormick is a boring, useless, standard GOP shill. The PA GOP electorate is insane and they want insane. They want Mastriano and Barnette and Scott Wagner, not McCormick.

[Lambsbread]

McCormick was polling poorly in most of the polling and overperformed. Period. But that'd beside the point
Mastriano literally lost by over more than twice than Trump did in 2020. He is now a proven lover, which I might add he was NOT in summer 2022. McCormick will have plenty of money, lots endorsements and massive establishment backing against someone who didn't even campaign at all in the general election.
If yall think Republicans are going to eternally nominate crazy people, you are going to be disappointed.

Look, I want nothing more than to avoid any timeline where Doug Mastriano has an approximately 50-50 shot of being in any position of power, but he gets the electorate in PA. Establishment backing means absolutely nothing, especially when it's behind someone like McCormick who is a carpetbagging nobody who can easily be called a RINO, even though he will also be more than happy to parrot Trump's talking points about...well, everything, just to win the primary.

Doug did as much campaigning in the primary as he did in the general and he won the primary in spite of that. Trump's endorsement may have helped a little, but Trump didn't endorse him until it was likely that he was going to win. Maybe he only won because the rest of the field was so fractured and that wouldn't be the case when it's just him vs. McCormick head to head, but I wouldn't rule Doug out until the votes are counted.

[Lambsbread]

Doug just announced on Facebook that he will NOT be running for Senate.

I’m shocked, honestly. I was totally convinced he was building hype so he could leverage a run for Senate. Pretty good troll job to get people this hype for a generic campaign speech about “freedom” while also not running for anything. More proof that this clown is deeply unserious and only about attention for himself.

[Lambsbread]

Well, this definitely opens the gates for another crazy to get in, though I don't think there's anyone left who's as high profile as Mastriano or Barnette (who is also out on this race iirc)

Most of the establishment will coalesce around McCormick either way.

[Lambsbread]

Oh no! Guess they'll have to run the checks notes

hedge fund manager who moved here to run for Senate

But it went so well when they tried it with the quack tv doctor!

[Lambsbread]

Every single house GOPer besides Fitzpatrick is way too conservative for the state at large. Guy would've done terrible.

I don’t agree. Guy was the only potential candidate that I was really afraid of. He’s young, common-guy-esque, and he can appeal to the crazies without alienating some of the swingier areas in NEPA and central PA. Especially against Fetterman, the winning message (“out of state elitist”) would not have worked against Reschenthaler.