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There is no better test this year of whether Republicans are making substantial inroads with Latino voters, once solidly Democratic, than Nevada.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), the only Latina in the U.S. Senate, is the partys most endangered incumbent. Hispanics comprise as much as 20 percent of the Nevada electorate. She needs to win them almost 2 to 1 to stave off Republican challenger, Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general and grandson of Nevada political legend, the late Paul Laxalt, who was a governor and a U.S. Senator.

Republicans, including Donald Trump in 2020, have cut into Democrats advantage with Hispanic voters, particularly non-college educated males.

We always thought that if we got more Latinos to vote, the Democratic vote would grow exponentially, notes Ana Iparraguirre, who has studied the data on Latino voting for the Democratic polling firm, GBAO Strategies. In 2020 we got more Latinos to vote, but support for Democrats did not grow.

There is a debate using different data and analyses over how much of a shift there has been to Republicans, and why. The Atlantics Ron Brownstein, who has followed this as closely and carefully as any journalist, concludes: The best evidence in polling and election results suggests the claim of a fundamental shiftamong non-college educated Latino voters is, at best, wildly premature. At a minimum, he suggests, there is a small shift.

Republicans have argued that the patriotism and cultural conservatism of Latinos will redound to the GOPs advantage. Thats questionable. Latinos generally mirror other Democrats in views on social issues like abortion and guns, says Michelle Mayorga, also a GBAO strategist. Many Catholic Hispanics are pro-choice on abortion.

However, Democrats have been hurt when linked, often unfairly, with the slogans pushed by the small left wing of the party, such as defund the police or open borders. In Florida, especially with second- and third-generation voters with roots in South American countries, charges that Democrats are socialistsresonated.

Moreover, Ms. Iparraguirre says, while the big social issues arent hurting, some of the woke stuff, like using gender neutral Latinx may be: This is definitely not something they self-identify as.

The main driver of any change, most exerts venture, is economics. Most working-class Latinos did well during the Trump years, at least before COVID hit. That apparently affected some voting habits.

Republicans are counting on an economy with raging inflation this year. The heaviest concentrations of Latino votes are in large states: California, Texas and Florida, as well as New Mexico. Yet they comprise as much as 4 percent to 5 percent in places like Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin and could make the difference in tight races.

The swing states with the largest Latino vote are Arizona and Nevada, both with competitive Senate, gubernatorial and down-ballot contests this November. In Nevada, the GOP is encouraged by voter registration gains that have cut into the Democrats advantage.

Laxalt, predictably, focuses heavily on inflation and high gas prices. These really hurt the sizeable working-class citizens in this geographically large state.

The Republicans also are making a concerted effort to cut into the Democrats support among Latinos by running Spanish language commercials and with a dedicated Latinos for Laxalt organization.

Republicans may have been handed another break with fissures among the Democrats. The Nevada Democratic Party, led by the late Sen. Harry Reid, used to be one of the most effective state parties in the country. Last year, the left-wing Democratic Socialists staged a coup, and they now run the party. The former and more formidable faction has set up a parallel organization.

Abortion may offset some GOP advantages on the economy. Three decades ago, Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum protecting the right to abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy; after that, it is protected only if the mothers life or health is endangered.

Cortez Masto is strongly pro-choice, while Laxalt, previously an anti-abortion hard liner, is equivocating and squirming. She is making abortion rights a campaign centerpiece, charging that Laxalt, as attorney general, sought to limit birth control access and, as a senator, would vote for a federal abortion ban.

She has been running ads in Spanish targeting Latino voters for more than four months and has held numerous events with the community.

The Democratic Senator according to Jon Ralston, the longtime journalistic sage on state politics with the Nevada Independent is a stronger candidate, has raised a lot more money and is more disciplined. He says Laxalt, a big Trump supporter who has embraced the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is really a terrible candidate. Hes no Paul Laxalt.

In what could be the tightest Senate race in the country, it comes down to the better candidate versus the more favorable conditions with the outcome in Latino hands.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hostsPolitics War Roomwith James Carville. Follow him on Twitter@AlHuntDC.

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Republicans, Latino voters and an eye on Nevada - The Hill

President Bidens scaled back Build Back Better agendanot so accurately rebranded as the Inflation Reduction Actis set to arrive on the Senate floor as Republicans may be losing momentum across the country. Senate candidates continue to struggle in states like Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania; and key House races, such as Michigans 3rd District, where John Gibbs defeated Peter Meijer, are shifting toward Democrats. Come November, it may become clear that election denial has consequences. Meanwhile, as Chris Stirewalt argues, the surge of low-propensity voters who turned out in Kansas to vote on abortion hints at trouble for Republicans.

In a weekend session at the end of a bad week, it will be tempting for Republicans to ridicule the tax-and-spend progressive excess in the bill but let Biden have his win and call it a day. Instead, Senate Republicans should use the rules of budget reconciliation, which allow for unlimited amendments, to offer a smart and aggressive amendment strategy. This debate is an important opportunity for Republicans to define not just what they are against, but what they are for when it comes to energy and climate policy.

Senate Democrats are using the playbook they use on every issuegive Republicans a bill theyd never vote for (i.e., one that raises taxes, beefs up the IRS, and expands Obamacare) and demagogue them for not caring about climate change. Republicans should turn the tables. Just as the DCCC recently showed that some Democrats are more interested in protecting Democrats than democracy when they backed election conspiracy theorists in midterm primaries, some Democrats are also more interested in protecting their positions than the planet.

Senate Republicans should start by stripping out the tax increases that would slow the innovation thats required to develop clean energy and ask how spending $80 billion on IRS enforcement and $64 billion on Obamacare subsidies will lower greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of offering a blanket no on the climate provision, Republicans should highlight what theyd consider supporting and then force Democrats to say no to spending offsets rather than tax increases as a means of financing those investments.

Republicans could even offer a planet-saving amendment to deflect the extinction-level climate asteroid some progressive say is coming with big investments in nuclear energy that are paid for by responsibly downsizing the administrative state. In his Nuclear Salvation essay, MITs Kerry Emanuel suggests a shift to nuclear would cost about $100 billion annually, which could be pulled from existing agency budgets. Let Leonardo DiCaprio and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) oppose that.

Republicans also have many constructive ideas on planting trees, permitting reform, and responsible domestic energy production that Democrats should be forced to vote against. Republicans probably cant win any of these amendments, but they can dramatically increase the other sides cost of winning and let Americans know what theyre for in the process.

As our organization recently showed in a June poll in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan, Democrats are out of step with their own base on climate and energy policy. Republicans have an opportunity to take command of an issue thats increasingly important to Americans, especially younger voters. Consider a few of our key findings.

The everything but fossil fuels progressive dogma lives loudly among Democrat political elites, yet 71 percent of Republicans and 63 percentof Democrats prefer an all of the above approach; 66 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Democrats support nuclear energy; and 62 percent of Republicans and 49 percent of Democrats support fracking, while only 32 percent of Democrats oppose fracking. Instead of President Biden asking OPEC to produce more oil, regular folks would prefer to use what we have here.

The poll also found that while Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WVirginia) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York) are working to sell their colleagues on a vote over reforms to the permitting process at an undetermined later date (i.e., probably never), voters want Congress to start with permitting reform now. By a 2-to-1 margin, voters prefer deregulation over new spending or tax increases. Two-thirds of voters want Congress to lift or reform outdated regulations to speed up the deployment of new clean energy technology, while only 31 percent are open to new or additional spending that is paid for by tax increases or borrowing.

Voters also want Congress to reduce and recycle government waste instead of creating more. When we asked voters how they want to fund clean energy research, 49 percent favored spending offsets, 29 percent wanted only private sector spending, 13 percent favored federal borrowing, and only 9 percent supported higher taxes. Voters also dont seem to be impressed by Congress decision to restart the earmark favor factory: 39 percent of voters oppose the return of earmarks, while just 21 percent support their return.

The bills authors no doubt understand that while climate change continues to creep up the list of voter priorities, its still dwarfed by overall concerns about inflation and gas prices. Our poll showed that 51 percent of voters view reducing inflation and gas prices as the most important issue while only 9 percent said the same of climate change. And calling a bill inflation reduction doesnt make it so. A Wharton study found that the bill wont reduce inflation, while the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found it will increase taxes for people earning less than $400,000, thereby violating President Bidens campaign pledge. Democrats claim to be deeply serious about the science yet conveniently ignore math that doesnt advance their ideological goals.

It's true that some polls, such as a recent Pew poll, suggest popular support for corporate tax increases. But a deeper look shows that when voters realize the costs will be passed on to them, they wont be happy. Our poll found that 76 percent of Republicans and Democrats are not willing to pay more than $10 a month to fight climate change.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosis (D-California) Taiwan visit inadvertently boosted the GOPs case by showing the world a belligerent China cant be trusted to care about climate change or its status as the worlds leading greenhouse gas emitter. In fact, China has already said it will no longer engage with the U.S. on climate because of Pelosis visit. Of course, few policymakers except for John Kerry ever thought China was serious.

Republicans should use their floor time to argue that were not going to beat China by becoming like China. Top-down authoritarianism isnt a sound way to reduce emissions. When it comes to forcing Chinas hand, our poll found that voters tend to prefer a Reagan-esque realism approach to more isolationism. A majority of voters (54 percent) do support a more protectionist trade policy toward China, but 62 percent support a NATO of the Pacific and more muscular policy of containment while 69 percent want to beat China with an economic freedom agenda focused on promoting innovation at home and accessing our own critical minerals.

Fortunately, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) has given Senate Republicans a head start on amendment ideas through his energy, climate and conservation task force. The Climate and Freedom Agenda authored by Nick Loris, VP of Public Policy at C3 Solutions, contains enough specifics to keep the Senate floor busy for weeks.

As my former boss, the late Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okloahoma), showed, amendment hardball works. He called these exercises teaching moments. Years of wearing down big-spending senators with creative amendments that exposed agendas and forced hard choices paid off. In 2011, conservatives got an earmark ban that lasted a decade while the Budget Control Act led to the first real year-on-year spending reduction since the end of the Korean War. In Washington, thats like making the river that fills the swamp run backward.

This bill isnt the last word on climate and energy policy. Its one marker in what will be a generational fight and struggle between freedom and authoritarianism and those who favor bottom-up innovation over top-down command and control decision-making. Republicans should use this debate to play offense and offer a teaching moment that contrasts governing styles. Voters, including primary voters, want Republicans to offer climate and energy solutions and prefer those candidates. Science and math are on the side of conservatives and against the deficit deniers. Free economies are twice as clean as less free economies. This is a fight conservatives can win and should run toward, not from.

John Hart is the Executive Director of the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions Action and the co-founder of C3 Solutions.

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Senate Republicans Need to Define What They're For - The Dispatch

Before the June primaries, I pointed out that party unity could end up being a key factor in determining how well each party does in Maines elections in November.

Since then, both parties seem to have done relatively well in that regard: Theyve successfully moved beyond the primaries and largely united behind their respective gubernatorial nominees an easier task without any serious unenrolled candidates contesting in the fall.

Sure, theres been some signs of grumbling in both parties, but largely its been at the local level and stayed mostly, if not entirely, behind the scenes. Both parties seem to have come to an unspoken agreement to lay aside their internal differences until after the election.

Well, so much for that.

Its no surprise that the first sign of an internal schism comes from legislative Republicans. Recently, it has become apparent that one PAC is far, far ahead of the others on the House side (at least, for now), a group called the Dinner Table PAC. Thats not so unusual: With current House Republican Leader Kathleen Dillingham unable to run again due to term limits, there was bound to be a very competitive race for leadership.

What is unusual here is not only that the Dinner Table PAC is finding success despite not being affiliated with the current leadership, but that the group has used criticism of current leadership as part of its fundraising appeal, and focused on small donors.

Its not unusual for candidates to base a run for leadership on criticism of current leadership. Thats par for the course.

If most legislators are tired of the current regime, sometimes that strategy is quite successful. Sometimes its a spectacular failure. Whats unusual about this situation is that the entire episode has become public, and that its happening so far in advance of the election.

For the most part, legislative leadership races in Maine are quiet, behind-the-scenes affairs: The general public hardly pays any attention to them and only learns the results once they occur.

While leadership candidates frequently raise and spend money on behalf of legislative candidates, normally its only the legislators themselves who are cognizant of which candidates are raising and spending the most. All of this usually happens at the legislative party caucuses after the elections, and usually those results play into that decision. Often, if a party loses the majority or doesnt do as well as expected, a change in leadership is all but inevitable its part of the responsibility that comes with the job.

At least, it used to be. Lately that model has been turned on its head in both parties, as legislative leaders have often kept their jobs despite losing seats. This doesnt make sense. Its political malpractice to give the people who lost the last election the chance to lose yet another one.

It would appear, based on the fracas between the Dinner Table PAC and current House leadership, that a faction of House Republicans are beginning to feel the same way, that holding leadership to account is a good thing.

Its also good to see another source of funding emerge. Too often, legislative leaders can use their ability to fundraise to sway the votes of their caucus toward special interests. By relying more on small donors, the Dinner Table turns that model on its head (at least, a bit) by giving the grassroots more of a say, if an indirect one, in leadership races. Its an interesting model that could upend Maine politics in the future.

Whats unfortunate is that this entire episode has become public. While most voters likely wont know or care about it, it shows that Republican legislators arent forming a united front. It would be a shame if these internal divisions hobble the party so much that it becomes unable to take advantage of a favorable political environment. Hopefully, both factions can take a step back and realize that before its too late.

Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins.He can be contacted at:[emailprotected]Twitter:@jimfossel

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Jim Fossel: Legislative Republicans' infighting puts party at risk - Press Herald

CHEYENNE, Wyo. It was just over a month before her primary, but Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming was nowhere near the voters weighing her future.

Ms. Cheney was instead huddled with fellow lawmakers and aides in the Capitol complex, bucking up her allies in a cause she believes is more important than her House seat: ridding American politics of former President Donald J. Trump and his influence.

The nine of us have done more to prevent Trump from ever regaining power than any group to date, she said to fellow members of the panel investigating Mr. Trumps involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. We cant let up.

The most closely watched primary of 2022 has not become much of a race at all. Polls show Ms. Cheney losing badly to her rival, Harriet Hageman, Mr. Trumps vehicle for revenge, and the congresswoman has been all but driven out of her Trump-loving state, in part because of death threats, her office says.

Yet for Ms. Cheney, the race stopped being about political survival months ago. Instead, she has used the Aug. 16 contest as a sort of high-profile stage for her martyrdom and a proving ground for her new crusade. She used the only debate to tell voters to vote for somebody else if they wanted a politician who would violate their oath of office. Last week, she enlisted her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, to cut an ad calling Mr. Trump a coward who represents the greatest threat to America in the history of the republic.

In a state where Mr. Trump won 70 percent of the vote two years ago, Ms. Cheney might as well be asking ranchers to go vegan.

If the cost of standing up for the Constitution is losing the House seat, then thats a price Im willing to pay, she said in an interview last week in the conference room of a Cheyenne bank.

The 56-year-old daughter of a politician who once had visions of rising to the top of the House leadership but landed as vice president instead has become arguably the most consequential rank-and-file member of Congress in modern times. Few others have so aggressively used the levers of the office to seek to reroute the course of American politics but, in doing so, she has effectively sacrificed her own future in the institution she grew up to revere.

Ms. Cheneys relentless focus on Mr. Trump has driven speculation even among longtime family friends that she is preparing to run for president. She has done little to dissuade such talk.

At a house party Thursday night in Cheyenne, with the former vice president happily looking on under a pair of mounted leather chaps, the host introduced Ms. Cheney by recalling how another Republican woman, Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, confronted Senator Joseph McCarthy when doing so was unpopular and went on to become the first female candidate for president from a major party.

The attendees applauded at the parallel, as Ms. Cheney smiled.

In the interview, she said she was focused on her primary and her work on the committee. But its far from clear that she could be a viable candidate in the current Republican Party, or whether she has interest in the donor-class schemes about a third-party bid, in part because she knows it may just siphon votes from a Democrat opposing Mr. Trump.

Ms. Cheney said she had no interest in changing parties: Im a Republican. But when asked if the G.O.P. she was raised in was even salvageable in the short term, she said: It may not be and called her party very sick.

The party, she said, is continuing to drive itself in a ditch and I think its going to take several cycles if it can be healed.

Ms. Cheney suggested she was animated as much by Trumpism as by Mr. Trump himself. She could support a Republican for president in 2024, she said, but her red line is a refusal to state clearly that Mr. Trump lost a legitimate election in 2020.

Asked if the ranks of off-limits candidates included Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom many Republicans have latched onto as a Trump alternative, she said she would find it very difficult to support Mr. DeSantis in a general election.

I think that Ron DeSantis has lined himself up almost entirely with Donald Trump, and I think thats very dangerous, Ms. Cheney said.

Its easy to hear other soundings of a White House bid in Ms. Cheneys rhetoric.

In Cheyenne, she channeled the worries of moms and what she described as their hunger for somebody whos competent. Having once largely scorned identity politics Ms. Cheney was the only female lawmaker who wouldnt pose for a picture of the women of Congress after 2018 she now freely discusses gender and her perspective as a mother.

These days, for the most part, men are running the world, and it is really not going that well, she said in June when she spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

In a sign that Ms. Cheneys political awakening goes beyond her contempt for Mr. Trump, she said she prefers the ranks of Democratic women with national security backgrounds to her partys right flank.

I would much rather serve with Mikie Sherrill and Chrissy Houlahan and Elissa Slotkin than Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, even though on substance certainly I have big disagreements with the Democratic women I just mentioned, Ms. Cheney said in the interview. But they love this country, they do their homework and they are people that are trying to do the right thing for the country.

Ms. Cheney is surer of her diagnosis for what ails the G.O.P. than she is of her prescription for reform.

She has no post-Congress political organization in waiting and has benefited from Democratic donors, whose affections may be fleeting. To the frustration of some allies, she has not expanded her inner circle beyond family and a handful of close advisers. Never much of a schmoozer, she said she longed for what she recalled as her fathers era of policy-centric politics.

What the country needs are serious people who are willing to engage in debates about policy, Ms. Cheney said.

Its all a far cry from the Liz Cheney of a decade ago, who had a contract to appear regularly on Fox News and would use her perch as a guest host for Sean Hannity to present her unswerving conservative views and savage former President Barack Obama and Democrats.

Today, Ms. Cheney doesnt concede specific regrets about helping to create the atmosphere that gave rise to Mr. Trumps takeover of her party. She did, however, acknowledge a reflexive partisanship that I have been guilty of and noted that Jan. 6 demonstrated how dangerous that is.

Few lawmakers today face those dangers as regularly as Ms. Cheney, who has had a full-time Capitol Police security detail for nearly a year because of the threats against her protection few rank-and-file lawmakers are assigned. She no longer provides advance notice about her Wyoming travel and, not welcome at most county and state Republican events, has turned her campaign into a series of invite-only House parties.

Whats more puzzling than her schedule is why Ms. Cheney, who has raised over $13 million, has not poured more money into the race, especially early on when she had an opportunity to define Ms. Hageman. Ms. Cheney had spent roughly half her war chest as of the start of July, spurring speculation that she was saving money for future efforts against Mr. Trump.

Ms. Cheney long ago stopped attending meetings of House Republicans. When at the Capitol, she spends much of her time with the Democrats on the Jan. 6 panel and often heads to the Lindy Boggs Room, the reception room for female lawmakers, rather than the House floor with the male-dominated House G.O.P. conference. Some members of the Jan. 6 panel have been struck by how often her Zoom background is her suburban Virginia home.

In Washington, even some Republicans who are also eager to move on from Mr. Trump question Ms. Cheneys decision to wage open war against her own party. Shes limiting her future influence, they argue.

It depends on if you want to go out in a blaze of glory and be ineffective or if you want to try to be effective, said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who has his own future leadership aspirations. I respect her but I wouldnt have made the same choice.

Responding to Mr. Cornyn, a spokesman for Ms. Cheney, Jeremy Adler, said she was not focused on politics but rather the former president: And obviously nothing the senators have done has effectively addressed this threat.

Ms. Cheney is mindful that the Jan. 6 inquiry, with its prime-time hearings, is viewed by critics as an attention-seeking opportunity. She has turned down some opportunities that could have been helpful to her ambitions, most notably proposals from documentary filmmakers.

Still, to Ms. Cheneys skeptics at home, her attacks on Mr. Trump have resurrected dormant questions about her ties to the state and raised fears that she has gone Washington and taken up with the opposition, dismissing the political views of the voters who gave her and her father their starts in electoral politics.

At a parade in Casper last month, held while Ms. Cheney was in Washington preparing for a hearing, Ms. Hageman received frequent applause from voters who said the incumbent had lost her way.

Her voting record is not bad, said Julie Hitt, a Casper resident. But so much of her focus is on Jan 6.

Shes so in bed with the Democrats, with Pelosi and with all them people, Bruce Hitt, Ms. Hitts husband, interjected.

Notably, no voters interviewed at the parade brought up Ms. Cheneys support for the gun control bill the House passed just weeks earlier the sort of apostasy that would have infuriated Wyoming Republicans in an era more dominated by policy than one mans persona.

Her vote on the gun bill hardly got any publicity whatsoever, Mike Sullivan, a former Democratic governor of Wyoming who intends to vote for Ms. Cheney in the primary, said, puzzled. (Ms. Cheney is pushing independents and Democrats to re-register as Republicans, as least long enough to vote for her in the primary.)

For Ms. Cheney, any sense of bafflement about this moment a Cheney, Republican royalty, being effectively read out of the party has faded in the year and a half since the Capitol attack.

When she attended the funeral last year for Mike Enzi, the former Wyoming senator, Ms. Cheney welcomed a visiting delegation of G.O.P. senators. As she greeted them one by one, several praised her bravery and told her to keep up the fight against Mr. Trump, she recalled.

She did not miss the opportunity to pointedly remind them: They, too, could join her.

There have been so many moments like that, she said at the bank, a touch of weariness in her voice.

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Liz Cheney Risks Primary Over Jan. 6 and Trump Investigation - The New York Times

Dwight Weidman| Guest columnist

Mastriano wins Pennsylvania GOP governor race

State Sen. Doug Mastriano won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvanias open governors office on Tuesday. (May 17)

AP

Most voters dont pay much attention to elections until after Labor Day, so it might be premature to make any forecasts regarding the upcoming November general election. Keeping that in mind, the early signs arent good for our two main Republican standard bearers, U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and candidate for governor Doug Mastriano.

With the Joe Biden albatross hanging around the necks of Democrat candidates, both the Pennsylvania governorship and the seat in the U.S. Senate should easily be classified as leaning Republican, but Pennsylvania Republicans, with their unique inability to get out of their own way, are now facing two races that are rated by most polling services as toss-up or leaning Democrat. How did we get here? More importantly, can the GOP turn things around?

Lets take a look at each of the two big races. Well start with the contest to replace U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring.

The Senate race is a textbook example of how not to win in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else. The Republican nominee, Dr. Mehmet Oz, might be great at selling miracle cures, but he has been a disaster from day one as a candidate. He has built-in disadvantages such as basically being a resident of New Jersey and a dual citizen of Turkey, in a state where nativist instincts are strong. His past pronouncements, backed by a wealth of video evidence, have shown him as liberal on many issues. His recent statement that he would vote for the Democrat Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify same-sex marriage, only confirmed conservative fears that Oz isnt one of them.

The biggest problem with the Oz candidacy is the turmoil that it caused right before the primary election. In a questionable decision, former President Trump had endorsed Oz, partially because of urging from people such as the most annoying man on television, Sean Hannity, and when Oz started underperforming in the primary polls, Hannity, and his fellow-polemicist on Newsmax, Greg Kelly, conducted a smear campaign against conservative Oz opponent Kathy Barnette, who was surging in the race. To this day, Barnette has not come out in support of Oz, and many of her conservative supporters are still sitting on the sidelines.

Trumps endorsement of Oz and the subsequent negative attacks on his opponents might have put the good doctor barely over-the-top in the primary, as many uninformed Trump supporters pulled the lever for him, but they also created division in the Republican ranks that has resulted in low enthusiasm, poor fundraising and polls that put the New Jersey doctor anywhere from 6 to 11 points behind a very beatable Democrat, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.

The campaign for Pennsylvania governor started with a lot of promise, at least in early polls, showing Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano and Democrat Attorney General Josh Shapiro in a statistical tie, but a new poll shows Mastriano slipping to a deficit of 10 points (Fox News, July 22-26). Even worse for Mastriano, the Fox News poll and some other surveys show Josh Shapiro at or near the magic number of 50%.

This race is another case of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot during the primary process. The hands-off approach by the state GOP led to a scramble by nine candidates, most of whom had zero chance of winning. This split the mainstream conservative vote allowing Mastriano, who many view as too far-right, to win with 43.8%. Mastrianos final primary tally was padded by a last-minute endorsement from Donald Trump, to claim another endorsement win. This also led many to question Trumps loyalty as he failed to support and endorse eventual second-place candidate Lou Barletta, who was one of the first major Pennsylvania figures to support Trump in 2016.

Mastriano, despite having a large grassroots following, lacks fundraising capability. His pre-primary disdain for his fellow Republicans and refusal to pledge loyalty to the partys nominee if it wasnt him isnt translating well to his pleas for unity now. He also lacks an experienced and capable staff, which will inevitably lead to many mistakes along the way. Weve already seen one major error in his campaign finance reporting earlier this year, and he recently and abruptly dropped his association with the social platform GAB after paying it $5,000 for advertising. Jewish groups have criticized Mastriano over his association with Gab CEO Andrew Torba, who supposedly has made anti-Semitic comments. Erratic, knee-jerk moves like this arent the hallmark of a competent campaign.

Anything can happen in the next three months, but current trends arent looking good for Republicans here. Unless these trends are halted and reversed by mid-September, it could be all over in Pennsylvania.

Dwight Weidman is a resident of Greene Township and is a graduate of Shepherd University. He is retired from the United States Department of Defense, where his career included assignments In Europe, Asia and Central America. He has been in leadership roles for the Republican Party in two states, most recently serving two terms as Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party. Involved in web publishing since 1996, he is the publisher of The Franklin County Journal. He has been an Amateur Radio Operator since 1988, getting his first license in Germany, and is a past volunteer with both Navy and Army MARS, Military Auxiliary Radio Service, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

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Pennsylvania Republican candidates might be in trouble this November - Public Opinion