The Pa. GOP is sticking with its current leadership despite suffering big 2022 losses

In the days after the November midterm elections, some Republicans focused their ire on Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman Lawrence Tabas.

The party not only lost high-profile races for U.S. Senate and governor — the latter in historic fashion — it also ceded control of the state House for the first time in 12 years.

Rivals started sharpening their knives, and some influential Republicans expressed hope that Tabas, a Philadelphia lawyer whose term ends in 2025, would simply resign.

But as the state party holds its annual winter meeting in Hershey this weekend, little has changed. Despite the heavy losses three months ago, the GOP appears poised to stick with its current leadership, even as Tabas pledges a full accounting of what went wrong in 2022. None of his critics appeared to have the determination, or votes, to oust him.

Meanwhile, the GOP is heading into elections this year that will shape the judiciary in Pennsylvania and next year decide on a swing seat in the U.S. Senate, while likely playing another central role in determining the winner of the 2024 presidential race.

“It’s the nature of this position. It’s the nature of politics, of life. Not everyone agrees with everything,” Tabas said in an interview Thursday, referring to criticism he’s faced, and his determination to continue leading the party. “It was a disappointing loss last year in Pennsylvania, but also for the Republican Party nationally. I’ve been called to lead. ... I’m gonna keep on going.”

Tabas said that he’s pushing for the party to embrace mail voting and that a task force is studying the issue. He said he’s encouraged by vote-by-mail data from a special state Senate election this week.

Jockeying has already begun in the 2024 election cycle in Pennsylvania. Former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick has signaled interest in another run for U.S. Senate, against Sen. Bob Casey, after he narrowly lost the last GOP primary to Donald Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz last year. McCormick is scheduled to hold a reception in Hershey this weekend.

Of more immediate interest is this year’s statewide judicial races, including one for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Democrats hold a 4-2 majority on the bench, with a vacancy following the death of Chief Justice Max Baer, who was elected as a Democrat.

“That race alone will cause people to be unified no matter what their beliefs or who they believe the leader should be,” said Guy Ciarrocchi, a Chester County Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year. “Everybody believes the opportunity to win the Supreme Court seat is paramount because of what it means in terms of everything from legislation to elections.”

But many Republican insiders have long complained that the state party isn’t equipped to deliver results. They have groused about poor fund-raising, a dearth of professional staff, and an anemic public presence. While the state party’s Twitter account is active, the last news release on its official website is from June 2021. Media requests often fall into a black hole. And when Republicans have had to respond to visits by President Joe Biden or other major events, it’s often the national party doing the heavy lifting.

The party appears to have responded to some of the concerns. It recently hired a few new staffers, including political director Brandon Ferrance and his deputy, Cody Morgan.

To some in the GOP, the state party’s decision not to endorse in last year’s critical primaries was a massive failing that left the party saddled with unpopular nominees, most notably State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who lost the governor’s race by 15 percentage points and, many strategists believe, dragged down other Republicans. Gov. Josh Shapiro won by the largest margin for a nonincumbent candidate since 1946, according to the Democratic Governors Association.

“There’s a lot of concern that Doug Mastriano or a similar type of candidate will get on the ballot again and tank the entire ticket again,” said Josh Novotney, a Republican lobbyist from Philadelphia. “The party has to be as strong as possible to prevent that scenario from happening again.”

Tabas said he’d encourage an endorsement in this year’s judicial races, but that it’s up to the party.

Party leaders undertook a sweeping review and are expected to brief rank-and-file members at the meeting this weekend on some of the findings of the post-election survey conducted by GOP pollster Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies.

The survey of about 2,000 Pennsylvania voters cost $100,000 — a considerable sum — and the accompanying report is said to run 1,800 pages, according to people familiar with the matter.

The full report isn’t expected to be released until the summer. The research was paid for by a political group run by Montgomery County fund-raiser Bob Asher, former GOP gubernatorial candidate Dave White, and Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, as well as members of Congress and other state lawmakers, according to an email Tabas wrote to party activists in December.

Tabas told members of the Republican State Committee he had retained Newhouse’s firm “to engage in polling and a complete review of the election in all 67 Pennsylvania counties.”

“Every aspect of the 2022 election will be examined,” Tabas wrote in a Dec. 13 email to party activists that was viewed by The Inquirer. “We will utilize the findings of this review to inform new initiatives including candidate forums, a robust mail-in ballot strategy, continuing voter registration drives, and clear messaging on what we, as Republicans, stand for.”

Despite discontent with the state party, no real plan to oust Tabas ever gained traction. None of his critics seemed to want to take the formal step of publicly pushing a party leader overboard, or to undertake the arduous task of wrangling the votes to do so.

Tabas tapped Ted Christian — a former Trump campaign aide once seen as a potential rival — to lead the Commonwealth Club, the party’s fund-raising arm.

And any effort to remove him would require a supermajority vote, a major hurdle. Some critics concluded that such a move would likely fail. And in any case, state parties in Pennsylvania and across the country are increasingly losing power as outside groups pour big money into elections.

Among the changes some county chairs are pushing is a wider GOP embrace of mail ballots, despite Trump’s long-running criticism of them. GOP leaders worry that they’re ceding too much of an advantage to Democrats by relying only on in-person voting, while their rivals utilize multiple voting methods.

“There’s definitely been some work done as it pertains to mail-in ballots and trying to overcome the lack of engagement from Republican voters on that matter,” said Bill Bretz, chair of the Westmoreland County Republican Party.