(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . PA-Sen: Mastriano's (R) Prayers Might Be Answered As New Poll Shows GOP Voters Want Him To Run Again [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-13 Two Losers. So remember this doofus? Doug Mastriano lost the Pennsylvania governor’s race last year by double digits, an almost unheard-of shellacking in a battleground state where winners and losers are often separated by a single percentage point. But another way to look at the election — the way the ultra-MAGA retired Army colonel-turned-state senator looks at it — is that he converted millions of voters to his cause and can now strategize, politically, about how to use them. “What do you do with a movement of 2.2 million?” he told POLITICO on a recent day in his office in the state capitol. “We’re keeping it alive.” In a sit-down interview, Mastriano, who rarely speaks with the mainstream media, made it clear that he is not finished with his quest to win higher office and transform the Republican Party along the way. He said he is “praying” about whether to go forward with a potential Senate run in 2024. After God, his wife, Rebbie, will have the final word he said. Well his “prayers” might be answered: x New Pennsylvania Republican numbers- Trump and Mastriano both have big leads in the primary. Trump 49, DeSantis 31, Haley and Pence 5 Mastriano 39, McCormick 21, Barnette 11https://t.co/sPTaoR2jce — PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) March 13, 2023 A new Public Policy Polling survey of Pennsylvania Republicans finds the party base wanting to continue its recent direction, with Donald Trump and Doug Mastriano holding 18 point leads in the races for President and Senate. Trump gets 49% to 31% for Ron DeSantis, and 5% each for Nikki Haley and Mike Pence. Trump (75/15 favorability) and DeSantis (71/8) are both broadly popular but the intensity of feeling for Trump is stronger. In a head to head contest with DeSantis, Trump retains the lead at 49-41. In the Senate race 39% of Republicans say they’d like their candidate to be Mastriano to 21% for David McCormick and 11% for Kathy Barnette. Mastriano remains relatively popular after his bid for Governor last year with 47% viewing him favorably to 28% with a negative opinion. McCormick’s Senate campaign doesn’t seem to have left much of an impression on voters- 65% say they have no opinion about him with 22% rating him favorably and 13% unfavorably. Barnette comes in at 17/16. Mastriano maintains his lead over McCormick in a head to head, 42-28. It’s 51-25 among the plurality of primary voters who identify themselves as ‘very conservative.’ PPP correctly identified Mastriano as the front runner in the 2022 Republican race for Governor all the way back in November of 2021. Meanwhile, Mastriano certainly has been making steps to gear up for a run: Doug Mastriano was back on the political stage in Pennsylvania Saturday, hosting the first political rally under his “Walk As Free People” banner since a landslide defeat to Democrat Josh Shapiro in last year’s governor’s race. “The Walk as Free People movement is not over,” said Mastriano, taking the stage at the Green Grove Gardens event center to a round of applause. “We’ve just begun.” It was the clearest signal yet from the state senator from Franklin County that he still sees himself as smack in the middle of a viable political career that enjoyed both surprising success and, in the end, a crushing defeat in 2022. For now, Mastriano needs to keep the grassroots army that rallied to his campaign in last year’s Republican primary interested and intact, first to try to influence the battery of school board, local government and judicial races that will fill the state’s ballot in 2023. “We plan on doing these every few months or so in different parts of the state,” he said in a brief interview after the mainstage event featuring Newsmax personality Wendy Bell and Christina Bobb, an attorney who gained notoriety as a mouthpiece for former President Donald J. Trump’s unsubstantiated election fraud claims on One America News Network, and now works on Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Meanwhile, Democrats are preparing for this race but against a different opponent: Former Senate candidate Dave McCormick (R) is gearing up for another campaign in Pennsylvania, eyeing a challenge of Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and Democrats are already teeing off on the former hedge fund chief executive. A pamphlet put together by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the campaign arm of Senate Democrats, tries to paint McCormick as a “chameleon,” appealing to both establishment Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and cozying up to former President Trump. The pamphlet was first reported by Politico. McCormick, who lost in the 2022 GOP Senate primary to eventual general election loser Mehmet Oz, suffered the wrath of Trump during his campaign last year after the former president backed Oz. But the DSCC piece cites a number of articles that tie McCormick to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. The document includes a New York Times article that explains how McCormick “is trying to reinvent himself as a Trump stalwart.” It also cites a Bloomberg report that says McCormick’s “former coworkers say he’s a ‘chameleon who’ll be whatever he needs to be.’” But it also includes remarks from Trump himself, saying McCormick is “not MAGA. David is totally controlled by Mitch McConnell.” Meanwhile, Sen. Casey is busy working for the American people. I like this: x Sen. Bob Casey says the changes would help “level the playing field” between workers and employers. https://t.co/ChAhlZtf3z — HuffPost (@HuffPost) March 9, 2023 Senate Democrats plan to introduce a pair of bills Thursday that could encourage more union membership and make it more costly for employers to crack down on organizing efforts. The legislation rolled out by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) would use tax law to accomplish those goals. One bill, which has 40 cosponsors, would restore a tax break that union members enjoyed until Republicans overhauled the tax code under former President Donald Trump. The other bill, which has 27 cosponsors, would bar employers from deducting the cost of anti-union campaigns as a business expense. Casey, a member of the Senate committees overseeing tax and labor policy, told HuffPost that the proposals would “help level the playing field for workers and empower them to exercise their right to organize.” Casey said in a statement: “These are commonsense steps to restore fairness to our nation’s tax code and stop rewarding corporations’ bad behavior when taking advantage of hardworking Americans and their families.” The legislation is largely symbolic since it’s all but certain to fail in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. And Senate Democrats omitted the legislation from the two bills they could muscle through the chamber without Republican support last year. But the proposals reflect some ways Democrats hope to strengthen unions through policy reforms large and small. The GOP tax law of 2017 brought about many changes for filers. Workers lost the ability to write off expenses tied to their jobs, like the cost of uniforms, tools, travel or, for those in unionized workplaces, their union dues. The Tax Fairness for Workers Act would bring back those deductions and tweak the union dues piece in a significant way. The tax break for dues would be “above the line,” meaning workers could use it to reduce their gross income whether they itemize their taxes or not. That feature is significant because fewer filers itemize their taxes these days after the GOP law significantly raised the standard deduction. The No Tax Breaks For Union Busting Act would end what Casey calls a “tax subsidy” for employers that try to throttle organizing campaigns. Businesses can deduct expenses considered “ordinary and necessary” in the course of their operations, but Casey’s bill would expressly forbid deductions for expenses tied to influencing how workers might vote in a union election. Here’s the thread below: x Our tax code should work for workers, not just corporations and CEOs. Today, I’m introducing two bills, the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act & Tax Fairness for Workers Act, to level the playing field for workers. pic.twitter.com/kIqWeU0kmK — Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) March 9, 2023 x The 2017 GOP tax bill took away workers’ ability to deduct workplace expenses-but kept it intact for corporations. The Tax Fairness for Workers Act would restore this tax credit & allow workers to deduct union dues on their taxes. It's time to make the tax code work for workers. pic.twitter.com/xR4jMQh8HQ — Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) March 9, 2023 x Too often when workers organize, corporations spend millions to stomp out the campaign. That’s not right. I’m reintroducing the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act to block corporate tax breaks for union busting. pic.twitter.com/5SUCitRTaA — Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) March 9, 2023 We need to keep Senator Casey in the Senate and make sure he’s ready for re-election. Click here to donate and get involved with Casey’s re-election campaign. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/13/2157170/-PA-Sen-Mastriano-s-R-Prayers-Might-Be-Answered-As-New-Poll-Shows-GOP-Voters-Want-Him-To-Run-Again Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/