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In just two months, Pennsylvania Republicans went from “blame game” to “warm embrace” on their dangerous nominee for governor Doug Mastriano.
Every Republican congressional candidate is embracing a candidate who, according to the Associated Press:
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Opposes abortion rights with no exceptions.
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Spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection risks alienating moderate party members.
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Talk[s] of decertifying voting machines, opposing gay marriage and ridiculing climate change as “fake science.”
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No GOP contender for governor in the U.S. did more to subvert the 2020 presidential election than Mastriano — and no one may be better positioned to subvert the next one if he’s elected governor.
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Has rubbed elbows with QAnon conspiracy theorists, Trump’s most prominent election-denying allies and people arrested in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. His active account on Gab — a social media site popular with white supremacists and antisemites where he also spent $5,000 for advertising — prompted a condemnation by the national Republican Jewish Coalition.
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Has been one of Pennsylvania’s leading spreaders of Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 presidential election. His plan to overturn the election results — introduced as a resolution in the Legislature — drew a subpoena from the U.S. House committee investigating the insurrection. Mastriano later organized bus trips to Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and, afterward, can be seen in photos walking past breached police lines to where he watched pro-Trump demonstrators clash with police on the Capitol steps. That prompted an FBI interview, though he has not been charged with a crime.
James Singer, DCCC spokesperson:
“Republican candidates have had months to reject the dangerous threat that is Doug Mastriano – instead they’ve chosen to embrace his agenda to ban abortion, spread election lies, push LGBT bigotry, and spew radical conspiracy theories.”
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