Will he or won’t he?
That is just one of the subplots as former president Donald Trump holds a rally tonight in Greensburg, located approximately 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.
The event is described as a Save America Rally and will be held at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds beginning at 8 p.m. and is anticipated to draw as many as 20,000 people.
Trump will be joined by recently endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, as well as House representatives John Joyce (R-13) and Mike Kelly (R-16), and GOP House candidate Jim Bognet (PA-08). Supporters – and opponents – want to hear what Trump has to say and what impact his words have on the upcoming races.
But the real intrigue centers on whether Trump will endorse any of the Commonwealth’s candidates for governor.
Lou Barletta, Jake Corman, Doug Mastriano, and Dave White, in particular, have been courting Trump for his endorsement – an endorsement that has risen in value after JD Vance’s victory in the Ohio senate primary. Vance will also speak at the event.
Oz has been vocal on the debate stage about the support received from the 45th president and the gubernatorial candidates are hoping for the same, given the relative tightness of the race. In a recent Franklin & Marshall College poll, Mastriano has pulled ahead by eight points over former U.S. attorney Bill McSwain, who Trump gave an “anti-endorsement.” Mastriano, the state senator from Franklin County and election denier, has led five of the last six polls focused on the PA governor’s race and has a 1.3 point average advantage.
Barletta, the former mayor of Hazleton, was one of Trump’s earliest supporters in 2016, while Corman, president pro tempore of the PA Senate, was close to dropping out of the race before a conversation with Trump pulled him back from the brink. White, a Delaware County businessman who supported Marco Rubio in 2016, says he is a supporter of Trump’s America First agenda.
Trump supporters have made a point of showing off his 55-0 record with regard to picking candidates. It should be noted that 33 of those candidates were in Texas and were prohibitive favorites to win their race, such as Texas governor Greg Abbott.
The nod to Oz, the celebrity surgeon, and the endorsement of Sen. David Perdue in the Georgia GOP governor’s race will be real tests of the “Trump mark,” as Oz held a slender two-point lead over challenger David McCormick in the F&M poll while Perdue trailed by a considerable margin.
With 39 percent of the respondents indicating they were still undecided as to a Pennsylvania senate candidate, tonight could go a long way toward tilting the scale in the Keystone State chase.
The event will be the first political rally conducted on the grounds, which hosts the county’s annual fair each August, said Sarah Sphon, secretary for the Westmoreland Fair board of directors, to TribLIVE.
“They reached out to us and worked out the details,” Sphon said.
She declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal to rent the fairgrounds.
The weather forecast for the event is not good, as the National Weather Service is predicting showers and a possible thunderstorm with temperatures in the low 60s.
27 Responses
I highly doubt Trump will back someone who voted for Act 77 because we have seen what happened in Pennsylvania during the 2020 Presidential Election. It was not a voting machine issue. It has to deal with mail-in ballots. Act 77’s purpose was to abolish the voting rights of Pennsylvanian citizens by instituting 50 days of no-excuse mail-in voting and changing the polling places time after time pandemic or not. The only hope against one of the candidates that have voted for Act 77 is Lou Barletta. Barletta was one of Trump’s earliest supporters in the 2016 Presidential Election cycle (alongside with Congressmen Tom Marino and Mike Kelly), and he is the one that will restore law and order to Pennsylvania. Any vote against Barletta is a vote for Doug Mastriano and Josh Shapiro.
Shapiro is going to win.
…not
What a loser Bob is. I’m so ashamed of him.
Are these real posts, or just the Imposter branching out to harass more legitimate poster? Only Politics PA knows, and they are not telling. Furthermore, they don’t care.
My greatest concern about Shapiro is that he seems, up to now at least, to be repeating the mistakes of Hillary Clinton and McGinty in 2016 of laying low and ignoring the rural parts of the state. Once Trump was the nominee, Hillary basically thought there was no way she could lose and she ran a weak / lazy campaign and avoided the rural redneck areas that, frankly, were people she really didn’t like anyway. I fear if Ding Dong Doug is the Republican nominee, Shapiro will do exactly the same mistake and then be sweating it out in November as the rural counties trickle in ssssssllllloooowwwwly wiping away his Philadelphia/Pittsburgh early lead.
I much more prefer Fetterman’s all 67 county approach of trying harvest as many rural votes as he can.
But make no mistake, the same way THERE WAS NEVER ANY WAY TRUMP COULD WIN IN 2016… until he did, the same could happen with Mastriano – all by winning big in the most rural areas of the state. The signs are all there and by that I mean look at all the Mastriano yard signs in the middle of nowhere.
I see lots of Mastriano signs everywhere. I hope my trolls do not run out of ink.
I haven’t seen a 1 for Dougie and I live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
Trump supported Act 77 by sending mail in ballot applications to PA voters – I received several from him. I hope he does not endorse any governor candidate tonight.
Great MAGA leadership will be on display. I can’t wait.
fake post by Imposter
fake reply by the imposter
Get lost you little creep troll.
Hopefully it rains long and hard throughout the entire rally and his orange makeup runs and that mess of hair is left hanging down his back once the hairspray hold in in place washes away. If the idiot does drop an endorsement for Governor , my bet is Kelly Ann Skankway has planted the MAGA fix for Jake the Snake Conman.
You seem like a real pleasant person; I’m sure you’re a joy to have at family events!!
100% rain at the Westmorland Fairgrounds. Have fun walking in the mud Trumptards.
Oh, I’m a real pleasant person. But why shouldn’t I wish the worst on Trump? He’s built his whole movement on hate for others and has divided this country like no other. He’s also brought some of the most spiteful people out of the woodwork and they now feel empowered to spread their disgusting hate as mainstream attitudes. When history does a full judgement on Trump, he will go down as one of the most divisive politicians, not only in US history, but the entire world. He will be in the chapter with likes of Hitler and Stalin.
So yeah, I hope he is cold and soaked right now.
Mastriano has been 1000 percent Trump. How Trump could choose someone over Mastriano is especially odd seeing how intense his MAGA minions love Mastriano.
Ask Josh Mandel and here are some other reason one Trump havent spoken to DOug in over year corman Dave and Lou he spoken to over the last month DOug voted for act 77 that pissed off trump trump would have endorse doug now if he was going too.
How would you know that The Donald hasn’t communicated with Doug?
1000% concur
Act 77 is irrelevant, for Wolf wudda declared an emergency under Covid-19 to implement what he wanted, anyway.
Crawl back into your hole you incompetent slub.
Despicable imposter name thief. I agree with Doc 1000%
both posts are by the Imposter who thinks he is so cute by posting opposing posts. Actually, he is just a double ass.
You dumb twat. The real gulag is with THEE great DJT in Greensburg. Everyone knows that
Agreed. gulag approved