Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano formally announced his intention to seek the GOP nomination for Governor of Pennsylvania on Saturday. The longtime Army Colonel spoke to a packed Gettysburg hotel auditorium of close to 2,000 supporters and received several high-profile endorsements over the course of the day. Mastriano, a first -term state senator representing Pennsylvania’s 33rd district, rose to national prominence after spearheading election integrity efforts in Pennsylvania. Mastriano was also a leading voice in opposition to Governor Tom Wolf’s draconian lockdown measures.
On November 25, 2020, Mastriano was instrumental in organizing a hearing where numerous Pennsylvania election irregularities were laid out. The committee heard from poll watchers from both Delaware and Philadelphia counties, statistics experts and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. “I don’t even know how this happened in America,” Mastriano said after hearing from the witnesses. “We can send, 50 years ago men to the moon, but we can’t have a safe, secure election in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? What’s going on here…… We move heaven and earth to secure elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we can’t secure elections in Pennsylvania?”
On Saturday, Mastriano touched on the criticism he and his colleagues received from both sides of the aisle after standing up for election integrity. “What we have in Arizona is a direct result of Pennsylvania leading,” Mastriano said of the Arizona audit. “As to these ‘baseless claims’ that the media ridiculously calls them, I reviewed my findings about a month and a half ago on the anniversary of the Gettysburg hearing and guess what? They haven’t disproven anything,” he continued. “Our election system is compromised, it needs to be addressed, it needs to be corrected, and it’s not gonna happen with the same old tired, dinosaur Republican politician that we constantly elect…… It’s time that we stop settling.”
Mastriano then spearheaded election audit efforts in Pennsylvania. He and a handful of colleagues toured the Maricopa County audit site with Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers. Mastriano then called for the same forensic audit processes used in Arizona to be repeated in Pennsylvania, but the effort was later hijacked by PA Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman. The Pennsylvania Senate is set to announce their audit findings in early 2022, but Mastriano has argued that the effort has not been nearly thorough enough.
Senator Mastriano was also very active in anti-lockdown efforts across the state. He attended several, grassroots anti-lockdown events and was a vocal supporter of an amendment that would limit Governor Wolf’s emergency powers if passed. The amendment was indeed adopted by voters last May, making Pennsylvania the only state to vote for and pass such measures. As a result of his anti-lockdown work, Mastriano received the endorsement of ReOpen PA and prominent anti-lockdown activist Matt Bellis on Saturday.
Another key endorsement received by Mastriano on Saturday was that of former Trump National Security Advisor and retired general, Michael Flynn. “Bold, courageous, authentic, honest, a man of integrity….. that’s what we need,” Flynn said of Senator Mastriano. “You’ve gotta decide how you’re gonna serve, and I’m here to ask you to get out there and serve this man, whose gonna be the next Governor of Pennsylvania.”
Other notable endorsements received by Mastriano on Saturday included America first congressional candidate Teddy Daniels, U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, Trump-endorsed Maryland gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox.
“It’s time that we walk as free people and return to who we are. We need to walk as free people,” Mastriano said. Some policy ideas put forward by Mastriano included mandatory voter ID, the abolition of mask and vaccine mandates, and the abolition of property taxes. The former Army Colonel also vowed to clean up crime-ridden Philadelphia, which just soared past an all-time record with 562 homicides in 2021. “I am not walking away from Philadelphia, we’re gonna clean that city up here and make it a gem and the pearl that it needs to be.”
Mastriano’s policies are laid out on Doug4Gov.com.
