What the FBI's search of Trump’s home could mean for Pa. midterm elections

Pennsylvania Republican leaders on Tuesday expressed outrage over the FBI’s search of former President Trump’s Florida home, and said they think the incident will boost GOP voter turnout in the upcoming midterm elections.

Democrats downplayed the potential political fallout, arguing that Democratic voters became more highly motivated to head to the polls this fall after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

“That should scare all Americans,” U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, said of the FBI’s search Monday of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. He said the home of a former president — and, in this case, one who could be running for president in the next election — has never been searched in this fashion before.

The Associated Press reported that the search is part of an investigation into whether Trump took classified records from the White House. Trump, disclosing the search Monday in a lengthy statement, asserted that agents had opened up a safe at his home and described their work as an “unannounced raid” that he likened to “prosecutorial misconduct.”

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, a Trump ally, said the action will worsen America’s political divide.

GOP leaders in Western Pennsylvania said they have been inundated with calls from angry Republicans.

Allegheny County GOP Chairman Sam DeMarco said the FBI’s search fits into a popular narrative among Republicans that America is becoming a “third-world country,” and he expects this to increase voter turnout this fall.

Bill Bretz, chairman of the Westmoreland County Republican Committee, added: “Frankly, I think this is going to gin up the base for this upcoming election.”

Trump received 63% of the vote in Westmoreland County in the 2020 election, and the GOP has grown a substantial voter registration advantage there over Democrats, which a generation ago had been the dominant party. And it appears that support for Trump hasn’t wavered since he left office — a rain-drenched rally featuring Trump and Oz this spring at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds drew thousands of supporters.

Republicans have also made gains statewide. Several years ago, there were about 1 million more registered Democrats in Pennsylvania compared to Republicans. Now the advantage is about half as large.

Bruce Antkowiak, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at Saint Vincent College near Latrobe, said the FBI’s search raises both political and legal questions that won’t be answered until details of the search warrant, approved by a federal judge, are made public.

“The big question is did the government attempt any other means to get those documents back and did they fail. You don’t ask for a search warrant unless there is a criminal investigation and there is an inference of a crime there,” Antkowiak said.

From a legal perspective, Antkowiak said investigators could be concerned about the sensitive nature of documents that were believed to be in the former president’s custody and how they might be used in the future.

He said he was surprised that authorities conducted a search rather than seeking a court order.

Democratic officials nationally have mostly stayed silent on the issue. Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, and Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, didn’t weigh in on the issue on their social media accounts as of late Tuesday afternoon.

Michelle McFall, who took over this summer as chairwoman of the Westmoreland County Democratic Committee, called the GOP outcry over the FBI search predictable. She said she doesn’t believe it will hurt Democrats in November. She said the Supreme Court’s abortion decision provided ample motivation for Democrats.

“This is just another day in a political conversation trapped in some bizarro world,” McFall said.

Sam Hens-Greco, the newly elected chair of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, said the incident will likely have an effect on many Republicans, but said local Democrats’ turnout strategies remained undeterred. He also criticized the argument that the FBI’s search was politically motivated, noting that the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, was appointed by Trump in 2017.

“This is about whether or not the FBI feels like there is something they need to investigate,” Hens-Greco said. “If (Trump) violated the law, he shouldn’t be above the law.”

Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University, said that, even if the FBI had a good reason to search Mar-A-Lago, Republicans will become energized by the incident.

“It just gave a bolt of adrenaline to the Republican Party,” Dagnes said.

She said it should help boost campaigns of candidates such as Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano.

In an interview on Newsmax, Mastriano said he was very concerned about the direction of the country and claimed the justice department was being politicized to help Democrats.

“I just pray to God things turn around because we are seeing the justice system being used as a hammer to batter political opponents,” Mastriano said.