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UVJunglist t1_iwspsoo wrote

Reply to comment by orangesfwr in Democrats win control of Pennsylvania state House · Spotlight PA by dotcom-jillionaire

Was almost certainly a factor. I still worry about the strategy of democrats promoting the far right during primaries to make for easier general elections, but it seems to have worked out this time.

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five_eight t1_iwsshz6 wrote

Republican primary voters are way more excited about owning the libs than selecting candidates who have mass appeal during the general.

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UVJunglist t1_iwsta7s wrote

True, but Republican voters still want to win elections, and guys like Dougie just don't win in swing states.

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avo_cado t1_iwstdfi wrote

Not the kind of republican who votes in the primary

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Manowaffle t1_iwvmpsw wrote

If it keeps them happy, I will happily go to all their events, set up a chair on stage, and just scoff indignantly at everything they say. I’ll be so triggered. I’ll even dye my hair blue if that helps. As long as they keep nominating losers.

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five_eight t1_iwvp7o7 wrote

Lol! That all sounds easier and more pleasant than trying to talk to them.

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Jicama_Minimum t1_iwst87u wrote

I posted this exactly before and was met with claims that Dems hadn’t done much to help him. I tried doing my own research and couldn’t find many concrete facts on what exactly was done to support Mastriano. There are several article headlines making the claim, but the articles themselves do not back the claim up (at least the ones I could find). I abhor this strategy if it is true, but I can’t find any evidence that says what was done exactly or how much influence it had. If anyone knows I’d love to find out.

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thenewtbaron t1_iwt2qs9 wrote

Shapiro bought ads that talked about Mastriano. None of the ads actually promoted Mastriano as the best choice. They were aimed at pointing out that Mastriano was a trumper, was at the jan 6th riot and generally pointing out his extreme points of view.

it was a strike to get those other republicans against him, or more centralist to stay home.

Mastriano was up 20% over his closest primary opponent but that left dougie only at around 40%. That means 60% of the republicans voted for someone else, possibly even against Mastriano.

If Shapiro could spent less than a million, or even less than half a million and could sway that much of the party to Mastriano... he really should change jobs, because people would pay MILLIONS to be able to swing a primary that hard.

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Now, to look at the numbers that doug pulled vs Josh, it was 2.2 million vs 3 million

If we looked at the presidental election trump vs biden, 3.3 million vs 3.5 million

It looks like a bit less voted for shapiro than biden but more than a million fewer votes went to mastriano vs trump...

If we looked at the presidential election of trump vs clinton, Shapiro got a bit more than hillary but mastriano got about 800k fewer votes than when trump won.

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RockyTheFlyingSaucer t1_iwsycpq wrote

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/us/politics/doug-mastriano-campaign-pennsylvania.html this article says Shapiro spent 400k to help lift mastriano in the primary

Long term this is a terrible idea. Resources should be used to support your message not radicalize the base of the opposition, Hilary tried a similar strategy with trump

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burritoace t1_iwu7jy4 wrote

This article is wildly misleading. They were attack ads, not promotional and not directed at GOP voters. This whole stupid story is manufactured.

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BugMan717 t1_iwugqw6 wrote

The absurdity of politics now means that attack ads and promotional ads are the same ad just for different sides. I know the attack ads for Fetterman we're highlighting things I want haha.

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burritoace t1_iwuiwqe wrote

Even still, the intended audiences are pretty different so I don't think it's hard to tell what each side is going for

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DoctorSteve t1_iwv03v9 wrote

I said this all the time. Any attack ad against a Republican looks like a Republican ad. "This candidate will ban abortion". How does that sound?

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tyrael459 t1_iwu74qk wrote

I agree. “It’s easier to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

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burritoace t1_iwu7fo4 wrote

There are lots of headlines and no actual evidence. The ads mentioned here were basic attack ads.

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rndljfry t1_iwug9uo wrote

They paid for ads that said "Trump supports Mastriano!"

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Sprinkles_Hopeful t1_iwv45uv wrote

Perhaps Republicans in Pennsylvania crossing over to vote for Josh Shapiro was a huge Factor

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GraffitiTavern t1_iwt3te3 wrote

Yeah it also helped get Trump in the first place, so still worried. Honestly this is from Republicans in the state house not doing anything beneficial for us in a decade as much as anything. Still remember when their meddling in education funding almost shut down my school senior year.

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