As I watched the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race unfold last night, I was focused on three counties: Luzerne, Berks, and my home county of Cumberland. In 2020, Trump won all of these counties. Last night, GOP senatorial candidate Mehmet Oz won all of these counties. At the time of this writing, the Luzerne County vote for the House of Representatives was too close to call (District 8: Cartwright v. Bognet); Scott Perry, the Republican House candidate, won Cumberland County (District 10); and Christian Nascimento won Luzerne County (District 4) despite losing the overall election to Madeleine Dean.
What does this all mean?
It means that Doug Mastriano was way too extreme for Pennsylvania. Shapiro beat Mastriano handily in all three of these counties, but Republicans swept all the other major races. My home county of Cumberland even elected pro-Trump election denier Scott Perry; but they still rejected Mastriano.
Interesting. Dan Cox, here in MD, is Mastriano on decaf. They appeared together at least once at a “Prayer Gathering” where they were anointed with oil – Current probably mentioned it. Cox lost to Wes Moore – a man with a great backstory, but never elected to public office. And Cox did lose handily, but a county by county breakdown shows Cox winning the majority (that State Electoral College a Mastriano supporter desired would come in handy here) – it is hard to overcome 100,000 vote loss in Baltimore and similar numbers in our DC metro counties. Unlike Mastriano, Cox was not considered too crazy by many in Maryland – even though Cox loved to display Trump shaking his hand on his largest billboards. I think more attention to his race would have resulted in a larger defeat – especially some national attention like Mastriano received. Or at least I do hope. More attention and light on crazy may just result in a slight return to normalcy.
I will not be surprised if a state electoral college movement emerges.