BRAD BUMSTED | Harrisburg BureauDissatisfaction with GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano among mainstream Republicans has led to the emergence of an unusual species of Pennsylvania voter: Those who plan to vote for Senate candidate Mehmet Oz in the closely watched U.S. Senate race and then mark their ballots for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro.
Surveys provide some empirical evidence of the Oz-Shapiro phenomenon. A Franklin & Marshall College Poll released late last month showed approximately 11% of Oz voters say they will vote for Shapiro.
And there’s anecdotal evidence in the list of former GOP officeholders who have endorsed Shapiro, including two former congressmen, two ex-judges, several former state lawmakers, and the top state lawyer for Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.
“Are Republicans splitting their ticket? I think so,” said Joseph DiSarro, chairman of the political science department at Washington & Jefferson College. He was not predicting Oz will defeat Democrat John Fetterman — just that a share of the celebrity heart surgeon’s votes may help pad Shapiro’s already sizable lead in the polls over Mastriano.
The odd political twist, if it is born out at the polls, could wind up determining control of the U.S. Senate in 2023.
Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, “needs Shapiro to pull him over the finish line,” said Larry Ceisler, who heads a Philadelphia public affairs firm and has been a longtime Democratic political analyst.
In Pennsylvania, voters have a long history of ticket splitting. Take the 1992 election, when Bill Clinton won Pennsylvania at the same time voters reelected Republican Sen. Arlen Specter. In 2000, Al Gore won Pennsylvania on the same ballot that saw GOP Sen. Rick Santorum reelected to a second term. And in 2004, Specter was reelected again while Democrat John Kerry won Pennsylvania over George W. Bush in the presidential race.
Oz-Shapiro voters would be moderate Republicans concerned about what they perceive as the extreme views of Mastriano, a state senator from Franklin County who backed former president Donald Trump’s false claim the 2020 election was stolen and is a no-exceptions opponent of abortion, analysts said.
“He’s given many Republicans no reason to support him by staying with his core group” of MAGA Republicans who helped him win the primary and by “failing to appeal to moderates and independents in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs,” said David LaTorre, a Republican media strategist, former gubernatorial press secretary and ex-newspaper reporter. During the Republican primary, LaTorre was spokesperson for state Sen. Jake Corman of Centre County, one of eight candidates who trailed Mastriano on the ballot.
While Oz and Fetterman have been virtually deadlocked in some polls, Berwood Yost, director of the Franklin & Marshall poll, notes that as of Friday no major poll has shown Oz leading Fetterman.
Fetterman leads by 4.3 percent in RealClearPolitics.com’s average of political polls, a figure often near or within the margin of error.
Shapiro leads Mastriano by an average of 10.4 points, according to RealClearPolitics.com.
Shapiro may not be the ideal candidate for Republican voters, but some GOP pols privately say the state attorney general is at least competent to run state government and note his professed willingness to work with Republicans, who are likely to continue to control the General Assembly in 2023.
Too right, or too left for Pa.
The campaign narrative that’s leading many voters to choose Shapiro and Oz is that their opponents are too extreme.
Mastriano, a retired U.S. Army colonel, was outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was responsible for organizing buses to take a large group of constituents to Washington, D.C., that day. (Mastriano did not enter the Capitol and was not accused of any wrongdoing.)
He was a leading election denier for President Trump in Pennsylvania and surrounds himself with a private security force — several with ties to militia groups, according to reporting by LNP | LancasterOnline.
Mastriano refuses to answer questions from the mainstream press, and his security guards keep reporters from getting too close. His no-exception stance on banning abortion includes charging women with murder if they violate it.
Mastriano “definitely has a problem on abortion with moderate Republican women,” LaTorre said.
Relying mostly on social media and interviews with friendly conservative commentators, Mastriano has not conducted a traditional statewide campaign, and he’s not had enough money for a major advertising blitz. Two weeks ago, he announced a 40-day, pre-Election Day period of fasting and prayer, a first for a gubernatorial candidate.
“I can’t support someone who hides from the media,” LaTorre said. “If you won’t take questions from the press, how can I trust you with a $30 billion (state) budget?”
If Oz and Shapiro win, DiSarro said it would show that Pennsylvanians are moving to the middle and rejecting the “extreme” candidates of both parties — Mastriano and Fetterman.
Ceisler objected to half of that assertion: “I wouldn’t call (Fetterman) extreme.”
But Oz’s campaign is trying to make the case that Fetterman is too liberal for Pennsylvania.
Fetterman has supported the legalization of marijuana, which is popular in polls, but also the decriminalization of hard drugs “across the board” in small quantities, according to a 2015 interview in The Nation, a magazine revered by those on the left.
Fetterman’s campaign says he does not support decriminalizing drugs such as heroin and cocaine but did not respond when asked in an email whether The Nation and other past news reports misquoted him. Oz accused Fetterman of “backpedaling” on the issue.
Record gun violence in Philadelphia also set the stage for Oz to go after Fetterman’s record as chairman of the state Pardons Board, where he pushed to expand the number of convicted criminals granted clemency.
Oz specifically called out Fetterman’s support for eliminating the automatic life sentences for people convicted of felony murder who did not individually take a life but participated in the crime, such as serving as a getaway driver. Fetterman says Oz has twisted his record on the felony murder rule, saying only that he wanted to remove the mandatory provision allowing no pardons in cases where no one takes a life.
While Fetterman may ultimately win a closer race than Shapiro’s, Ceisler said Mastriano can’t be counted out.
“If your name is on a major party’s ballot in Pennsylvania, you have a chance,” Ceisler said.
Besides, some of the potential Republican Shapiro voters may get cold feet and return home to the GOP.
And the fact that former President Donald Trump is backing both Oz and Mastriano means Republicans, in a perfect storm of voter turnout, could sweep the top two offices on the ballot this year.
