Pa. Republican candidates for governor grapple with Trump’s anti-endorsement

Aftershocks were reverberating Thursday through the Republican primary for governor in Pennsylvania after Tuesday’s upheaval, centered on former President Donald Trump’s stinging anti-endorsement of Bill McSwain.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, who briefly filed paperwork to drop out of the primary but then reversed course the same day, is doing another about-face and will attend a debate next week after initially ruling it out.

Corman, who said Trump asked him Tuesday to stay in the race, will appear at a debate Tuesday at Gettysburg College, sponsored by The Inquirer, Spotlight PA, Trib Total Media, and PennLive/The Patriot-News.

Aides to Corman, McSwain, former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, and former Delaware County Council member Dave White jointly wrote a letter to debate organizers last month, demanding that moderators all be registered Republicans, Pennsylvania residents, and have never “spoken negatively about any of the candidates on stage.” The organizers rejected those conditions.

“Jake is in this race to fight for every Pennsylvanian,” a Corman spokesperson said Thursday. “That’s what he and President Trump discussed, and that’s what he’s going to do Tuesday night in Gettysburg.”

Some of McSwain’s supporters were still taking stock of Trump’s jolt to the race. McSwain, who had previously been appointed by Trump as U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, had sought Trump’s endorsement.

Trump on Tuesday instead denounced McSwain in a statement that repeated the former president’s lies about widespread election fraud in Pennsylvania. Trump said McSwain “did absolutely nothing” about his debunked complaints about the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.

“Do not vote for Bill McSwain, a coward, who let our Country down,” Trump said.

McSwain responded Tuesday that he is “proud of my record as U.S. Attorney.”

That prompted the Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, a billionaire-backed conservative group with millions to invest in the race that has already spent nearly $6 million to help McSwain in the primary, to email supporters, telling them the group is “currently assessing what all this means for the primary election.”

Commonwealth president Matt Brouillette noted in the email that Corman stayed in the race “after seeing Trump’s statement and talking directly with Trump.”

“At the end of the day, we will make decisions that best advance this free-market policy agenda,” Brouillette concluded.

HIs PAC’s biggest funder has been Jeffrey Yass, the Bala Cynwyd-based billionaire investor who is among the wealthiest men and women in America.

» READ MORE: This Philly area trader earns over $1 billion a year and pays a lower income tax rate than most Americans

Sensing opportunity, White on Thursday went on the attack with a new ad, declaring that McSwain has “been exposed as never-Trumper Pat Toomey’s puppet with good reason.”

Toomey, who is not seeking another Senate term this year, voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges for inciting the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, drawing the continuing ire of Trump supporters.

White’s ad also says, “McSwain joined the Democrats and refused to investigate PA voter fraud.”

There is no evidence of significant fraud in Pennsylvania’s 2020 election. State and federal judges, some appointed by Trump, reviewed his campaign’s claims of fraud and found them to be without merit.

McSwain spokesperson Rachel Tripp called White a “career politician who has raised property taxes” and “enriched himself from government contracts.”

It’s no surprise, she said, that White is “continuing to attack the conservative outsider who has the potential to beat Josh Shapiro.”

Shapiro, the state attorney general, is the only Democrat running for governor.

Tripp also criticized White for accepting campaign contributions from labor unions that have supported Democrats like Joe Biden, saying that shows White cannot be trusted.

McSwain took solace Thursday in two new polls — conducted before Trump’s rebuke Tuesday — that ranked him “surging” into second place in the primary, according to his campaign.

A Franklin & Marshall College Poll, showed State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin) in the lead at 15%, McSwain with 12%, Barletta at 10%, White at 5%, and Corman at 2%. Forty percent of those polled were undecided in the primary.

An Eagle Consulting Group poll gave Mastriano 19%, McSwain 12.7%, Barletta 11%, and White 7%. Corman and four other candidates all polled below 2%, with 44% of those polled still undecided.

For his part, Corman on Thursday said he’d received “a lot of good financial support” since he spoke with Trump on Tuesday. “He thinks I can win,” Corman told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast. “When the president encourages you to keep fighting, you keep fighting.”

In the interview, Bannon reiterated his call for the decertification of “illegal” Biden electors — something that has no basis in the law or U.S. Constitution. Corman didn’t take a position on that idea but said: “As governor, I will turn the Department of State upside down.”