A Josh Shapiro LGBTQ endorsement event set off a backlash

Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general and the only established Democrat running for governor, has a clear path in the primary, a gargantuan campaign account, and strong name recognition.

The only thing that can trip Shapiro are unforced errors.

Which brings us to last week’s event in the heart of Philly’s Gayborhood, where six LGBTQ activists sang the praises of Shapiro and his running mate, State Rep. Austin Davis of Allegheny County.

The event was primed for political tension, at the geographic center of a district represented by State Rep. Brian Sims, the first openly gay person elected to the House. Sims faces Davis in the May 17 primary for lieutenant governor.

Tyler Titus and Kendall Stephens, two of the six speakers, later told Clout they initially thought they were attending a meeting with Shapiro to discuss legislation that would extend nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ Pennsylvanians.

That bill did come up — Shapiro vowed to get it passed into law if elected — but the event focused on endorsing the Shapiro-Davis ticket.

Titus, who ran last year for Erie County executive with Shapiro’s help, endorsed Sims almost a year ago. Titus backs Shapiro but accused local organizers, including Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal, of misleading people and then pressuring them to back Davis at the event.

Segal denied that and accused Sims of intimidating people into retracting their support for Davis. He said the event has sparked a fire of angry phone calls, texts, and emails.

» READ MORE: More Clout: Republicans are courting Trump’s support for Pa. governor — very carefully

So let’s recap: Shapiro came to town, seeking to cultivate a sense of inevitability for his ticket. Sims pounced on potential instability in that ticket. A Democratic donnybrook ensued.

Davis’ campaign on Wednesday released a statement from seven Democratic state House and Senate caucus leaders, accusing Sims of taking “disappointing steps to push falsehoods and attacks against our party-endorsed ticket.”

“It is clear Rep. Sims is willing to put his own self-interest above that of the party, and for that reason he is unfit to help lead it,” they said.

Shapiro’s campaign manager, Dana Fritz, has been calling event participants to clear things up. Stephens, a Philly activist, got one of those calls. She had endorsed Sims and thought the event meant he was no longer in the race.

“I feel awful and wish I had asked more questions and received more information before endorsing Davis,” Stephens said.

Shapiro refused to say at the event if he had tried to get Sims to bow out. Sims later said Shapiro had done just that, calling the effort “offensive.”

The event also prompted social media recriminations, driven partly by Nellie Fitzpatrick, a former director of LGBTQ affairs for Philadelphia forced from that job in 2017 amid tension about racial discrimination in the Gayborhood.

The two jabs at Davis: He didn’t protect transgender inmates while serving on the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board, and he spent four years in the state House and before joining the LGBTQ Equality Caucus in January — two weeks after Shapiro picked him as a running mate. Sims is chair of that caucus.

Kunal Atit, Davis’ campaign manager, defended his record, citing votes in the House “against every bill proposed by the Republican majority in Harrisburg meant to discriminate against LGBTQ Pennsylvanians.” He also said Davis, while working for Allegheny County, worked to extend employee benefits to same-sex couples.

The war of words between Donald Trump and Bill Barr has again dragged former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain back into the 2020 election as McSwain campaigns in this year’s Republican primary for Pennsylvania governor.

The former president, in a letter last week to NBC News anchor Lester Holt, claimed that Barr, as Trump’s attorney general, didn’t let McSwain “look into the many corrupt things that happened in Philadelphia.”

The letter, like most of what Trump says about the 2020 election, is a litany of debunked claims. It came in response to an interview Barr did ahead of of his memoir, One Damn Thing After Another, being released Tuesday.

Barr told NBC that Trump became “very angry” in a December 2020 White House meeting when Barr told the president his election fraud claims were “bull—.”

» READ MORE: Bill McSwain tried to walk a political tightrope on Trump’s election lies. Bill Barr cut it.

McSwain, in a letter to Trump last June seeking an endorsement, complained that Barr told him “not to make any public statements or put out any press releases regarding possible election irregularities.” He also wrote that he was “given a directive to pass along serious allegations” to Shapiro.

The letter did not specifically say Barr prevented McSwain from investigating voter fraud. McSwain’s campaign offered no proof Barr did that when Clout asked.

Barr told The Inquirer last July that he had given McSwain “discretion to look into any specific, credible allegations of major fraud” but that McSwain was more interested in making “political statements.”

“He wanted to not do the business of the department, which is to investigate cases, but instead go out and flap his gums about what he didn’t like about the election overall,” Barr said then.

Barr also said he confronted McSwain about the letter last summer and McSwain told him he wrote it because “he was under pressure from Trump and for him to have a viable candidacy he couldn’t have Trump attacking him.”

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.