Democrats, meanwhile, are united behind the state\u2019s two–<\/span>term elected attorney general, Josh Shapiro. He is uncontested on the primary ballot after wrapping up the endorsement of the state party and its top allies, including the AFL–<\/span>CIO, and raising more than $20 million since early 2021.<\/p>\n Shapiro helped cement his reputation with a landmark grand jury investigation into child sexual abuse coverups inside Pennsylvania\u2019s Roman Catholic dioceses and defending Pennsylvania\u2019s 2020 election result against attempts in court to overturn it by Trump and his allies.<\/p>\n They are vying for the right to succeed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is constitutionally term–<\/span>limited after entering office in 2015. The winner is likely to share power with a Republican–<\/span>led Legislature, where entrenched GOP majorities have controlled the floors for nearly all of the past three decades.<\/p>\n Mastriano has insisted to supporters that he is not a far–<\/span>right candidate and that his platforms \u2014 including eliminating mail–<\/span>in voting, expanding gun rights, banning abortion and banishing school property taxes \u2014 enjoy broad support.<\/p>\n Rather, he says Democrats \u2014 including President Joe Biden \u2014 are far–<\/span>left radicals while the Republican \u201cswamp\u201d is trying to defeat him. Shapiro\u2019s campaign, meanwhile, is running a TV ad portraying Mastriano as extreme and saying that if Mastriano wins, \u201cit\u2019s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n Mastriano represents a heavily Republican state Senate district based in Franklin County on Pennsylvania\u2019<\/span>s southern border with Maryland.<\/p>\n Republican voters will see nine names on the ballot for governor, even though two \u2014 Jake Corman and Melissa Hart \u2014 say they have ended their campaigns and endorsed former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta as part of a last–<\/span>ditch attempt to help defeat Mastriano.<\/p>\n Barletta has picked up a number of endorsements by current and former Republican officeholders, including members of Congress.<\/p>\n Besides Mastriano, Barletta, Corman and Hart, also on the Republican ballot for governor are: Joe Gale, a Montgomery County commissioner; Charlie Gerow, a marketing consultant and longtime conservative activist; Bill McSwain, a lawyer who was the Trump–<\/span>appointed U.S. attorney in Philadelphia; Dave White, who runs a large plumbing and HVAC firm and is a former Delaware County councilman; and Nche Zama, a retired heart surgeon who has directed units at various hospitals in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Pennsylvania Republicans prepare to choose a nominee for governor Tuesday, some party officials are twisted in knots over the possibility of a primary victory by a candidate many see as too far too the right to win statewide this fall. Doug Mastriano, a retired U.S. Army colonel and state senator since 2019, has led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":21928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6493,4791,7603,8217,6063,5178,11941,9204,10387,6609,8338,9214,6693,10000,10507,10309,913,6576,911,6085,8478,9807,5328,10197,2471,11386,6580,10776,5423,2603,3399,5612,7968,6574,5844,3805,11377,6544,6200,6944,6575,10897,6833,6736,8501,6082,6704,6206,10885,6571,3954,9656,594],"class_list":["post-21927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-abortion","tag-abuse","tag-activist","tag-army","tag-battleground","tag-biden","tag-bill","tag-border","tag-campaign","tag-catholic","tag-cement","tag-child","tag-congress","tag-conservative","tag-court","tag-delaware","tag-democratic","tag-democrats","tag-election","tag-fraud","tag-gop","tag-gun","tag-hospitals","tag-investigation","tag-joe-biden","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-jury","tag-lawyer","tag-lies","tag-maryland","tag-melissa","tag-money","tag-nine","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-property","tag-race","tag-republican","tag-republicans","tag-roman","tag-roman-catholic","tag-school","tag-senate","tag-senator","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-taxes","tag-victory","tag-white","tag-will","tag-wolf","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2022\/05\/61FE641E-FD07-4DA4-AE6A-B46C992EBE47-300x184.jpeg\")
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