Mastriano speaks in Erie, calls his opponent the 'extreme' candidate

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, during a speech in Erie Wednesday tried to change the narrative that he's the "extreme" candidate in the race.

As part of its Legislative Luncheon series at the Manufacturer & Business Association's Erie headquarters, 2171 W. 38th St., Mastriano — whose campaign attempted to prohibit the media from covering his speech despite the MBA inviting the press to attend — tried to paint Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general, and the man both are trying to succeed, Gov. Tom Wolf, as the one out of step with Pennsylvania voters.

He alleged that Shapiro has a "terrible record to run on" and that, under his six years as attorney general, crime has spiraled out of control.

"Fancy words now is not going to redeem a record of failure," Mastriano said. "He's failed the Pennsylvania people here for six years."

Mastriano, 58, repeated a misleading comment that Shapiro filed a lawsuit against the Little Sisters of the Poor over contraceptive coverage in the Affordable Care Act and slammed him for the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And he said Shapiro would set women's rights back 50 years by allowing transgender people to participate in girls sports. Mastriano repeatedly misgendered those trans student-athletes who want to participate in sports as "boys" and said he would prohibit trans people from using the "bathroom of their choice."

He vowed to ban critical race theory from the classroom, falsely insinuating that it is currently taught in Pennsylvania's public schools and saying that the academic concept "pits people against people based on their skin color."

CRT in NWPA?:Critical race theory isn't taught in northwestern Pennsylvania schools, but controversy still looms

Mark DiPlacido, a sales representative for Erie Industrial Plastics, said he found Mastriano to be "compelling."

"I thought it was great," he said of Mastriano's speech to MBA members. "I think he definitely has a demonstrated background of serving our country, a pretty extensive education and I think a plan to turn the state around. Wolf, frankly, has made it a very unfriendly environment to do business and to just live your life, especially if you have children and are trying to get them educated. Across the board on every issue he raised, I found his points very compelling."

Mastriano said there's a "laundry list of things Democrats don't want us to talk about," including the economy, inflation and high gas prices. He pointed to a recent NBC News interview of Shapiro in which the Democratic nominee was asked how he would be different than Wolf.

"He gave no examples of how he's going to be different from Wolf, so if you like how things have gone just the past two years economically and under Gov. Wolf's leadership then I'm not your guy," he said. "But if you're looking for a restoration of freedom and power back in your hands and rolling back bureaucracy and stripping back regulations and opening up this state for business, then I'm your guy. If you're looking forward to a new birth of freedom, I'm your guy."

Mastriano, a retired U.S. Army colonel from Franklin County, said Wolf failed to condemn protestors who held up signs reading "Blue Lives Murder" when he attended a Black Lives Matter march in June 2020 following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Wolf, according to multiple reports at the time, said he did not condone the sign and believed that Pennsylvania State Police were doing a "fine job."

And he took repeated shots at the "traditional media" whom he accused of supporting the Democrats.

"I was disgusted when I saw that. And nobody in the media or in the Democrat Party asked him to renounce that," Mastriano told the crowd of MBA members and others. "You know, for us, if I advertise on a platform where controversial things happen, I'm crucified and held before inquisition. You know, 'How dare he,' but it's OK for their guy to physically march in a parade that's calling for violence against police."

Mastriano's campaign initially attempted to ban local media from hearing his speech Wednesday, but it later agreed to allow the press access on the condition that reporters not ask him questions. Mastriano took no questions from audience members, either, bypassing the customary question-and-answer portion of the program. The Manufacturer & Business Association has regularly invited the press to Legislative Luncheon events, including Wednesday's program.

Mastriano has throughout the campaign refused to grant interviews or access to campaign events to legacy media outlets. Instead, he's talked almost exclusively to conservative and right-wing media outlets like Fox News and One America News.

Affiliation with Gab, an antisemitic social media site

After weeks of scrutiny, Mastriano last week issued a statement about his ties to the far-right social media site Gab, addressing antisemitic comments both on the site and made by its founder Andrew Torba.

Gab is the forum frequented by Robert Bowers, the 46-year-old man who had posted antisemitic comments on the site before killing 11 people, including Holocaust survivors, and wounding six at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018.

Media Matters of America, a left-wing media watchdog organization, was first to report that Mastriano's campaign paid $5,000 to Gab for consulting services in April. Mastriano sat for an interview with Torba not long after, praising Torba: "Thank God for what you've done," Mastriano told him at the time.

Mastriano responded to the controversy as criticism over Gab and Torba intensified. He then deleted his Gab account.

Torba, a self-described Christian nationalist, said recently that he does not conduct interviews with reporters or media outlets that are not Christian, as reported by the Washington Post.

"Doug has a very similar media strategy where he does not do interviews with these people,” Torba said of Mastriano. “These people are dishonest. They're liars. They're a den of vipers and they want to destroy you.”

Torba also doesn't consider Jews and other non-Christians as "conservative" because the conservative movement is "explicitly Christian" and because the United States "is an explicitly Christian country."

“Andrew Torba doesn’t speak for me or my campaign,” Mastriano wrote in a statement posted to his campaign accounts. “I reject antisemitism in any form. Recent smears by the Democrats and the media are blatant attempts to distract Pennsylvanians from the suffering inflicted by Democrat policies.

"While extremist speech is an unfortunate but inevitable cost of living in a free society, extremist policies are not — and the only candidate in this election who wants to impose extreme policies on Pennsylvania — inflation, crime, lockdowns, and mandates — is Josh Shapiro."

Campaign officials with Shapiro — who is Jewish — noted that Mastriano, in his own statement, "refused to denounce Andrew Torba and answer whether he too only responds to Christian news outlets."

The Anti-Defamation League has called Gab a “haven for extremists, conspiracy theorists and misinformation” and in 2021, days after the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, the ADL urged the U.S. Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation of Gab and Torba "to determine whether the social media platform intentionally aided or abetted individuals who carried out" the attack. Mastriano attended former President Donald Trump's Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse and was later photographed passing barriers that had been set up around the U.S. Capitol Building by law enforcement.

Shapiro's campaign issued a statement Wednesday responding to Mastriano's remarks in Erie:

“Josh Shapiro is focused on growing our economy and creating jobs, ensuring our children receive a quality education, and making Pennsylvania communities safer — and he will be a Governor all Pennsylvanians can count on. Doug Mastriano, on the other hand, has said his top priority is banning abortion without exceptions, and he is focused on undermining our elections and dragging our Commonwealth backwards. Instead of running and hiding from tough questions, Doug Mastriano should step up and tell voters exactly why he paid Gab thousands of dollars to recruit antisemitic extremists to join his campaign."

Mastriano's first 100 days

Mastriano, after railing against his opponent, said he would withdraw Pennsylvania from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on "Day 1" of his administration. He also said that within his first 100 days in office he would open state-owned lands to oil and gas drilling and launch an energy "renaissance" in the state. He also vowed to roll back one-third of regulations currently in place, bringing the number under 100,000, and implement a policy whereby for every new regulation adopted two must "go away."

"I'll get the government off of your back and out of your wallet," he said, referencing a Ronald Reagan quote.

He said he would go after high-crime areas by appointing more prosecutors and that he would "have the backs of our law enforcement."

"As far as illegals ... when they leave the gate (at the airport) they'll be escorted to Delaware, Joe Biden's home state," he said.

Mastriano, who was at the forefront of spreading former President Donald Trump's lies as part of the "Stop the Steal" movement, which without evidence alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election, also said he would work to "assure free and fair elections." Mastriano has said that if he had been governor at the time of the election, Trump would have won.

He's also said he wants to end no-excuse mail-in voting, despite having voted in 2019 for the legislation that gave Pennsylvania voters the option. And he's also called for every voter to reregister.

5-2 decision:Pa. Supreme Court upholds no-excuse mail voting ahead of midterms

Heading toward the election

Mastriano faces an uphill battle against Shapiro, both in terms of fundraising but also in several polls. Shapiro was able to amass millions of dollars running uncontested during the Democratic primary while Mastriano had to fend off a double-digit-deep field of Republicans to capture his party's nomination. Shapiro, according to Pennlive.com, outspent Mastriano 10:1 on advertising this summer.

Polls have consistently given Shapiro a slight edge, including a recent Fox News poll taken between July 22 and 26, which put Shapiro up 10 points over Mastriano, 50% to 40%.

Mastriano also faces criticism within his own party that he's too extreme. Those critics made a failed, last-ditch effort in the primary to derail Mastriano's then-surging campaign by having other GOP candidates exit the race and, along with other influential Republicans, endorse the eventual runner-up, former Congressman Lou Barletta, who said Mastriano cannot win in the Nov. 8 general election.

Nine Republican leaders, including two former U.S. congressmen and a former state House speaker, in July endorsed Mastriano's opponent. And another group of GOP officials recently formed a political action committee to oppose him.

Eight of Pennsylvania's nine Republican members of the House of Representatives have endorsed Mastriano.

Mastriano urged supporters not to defend him if questioned about the nominee's positions or beliefs but to "take the attack to them." Mastriano immediately clarified that he did not mean that supporters should physically attack his critics or others.

"It's time for change," he said. "And that bold leadership — you're looking at him," he said. "This is the job I didn't have to do, but I'm doing out of love of our country, love for you guys, actually."

Contact Matthew Rink at mrink@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNrink.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Doug Mastriano: GOP gubernatorial nominee speaks to Erie business group