What price will candidates pay to emerge from Pa. primaries?

Pennsylvania’s Republican primary races for governor and U.S. Senate have been rugged affairs, with infighting among the crowded fields of GOP candidates and millions of dollars pouring in to fund a barrage of attack ads.

On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has built a sizable lead in polls in the party’s primary race for U.S. Senate, but opponents have launched attacks that Republicans figure to adopt and use against him. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, unopposed in the Democratic primary race for governor, will emerge from the primary relatively unscathed and without having had to dig too deep into his campaign funds.

These different paths to party nominations could change the dynamic of the general election in the fall, experts say.

Veteran political consultant Christopher Nicholas said the infighting has helped less mainstream candidates rise in the polls, but such candidates might have a harder time winning in general elections, where attracting more moderate voters could be a key to victory because they “have views that are far out of norm of their respective parties.”

“It will make for a fun general election,” Nicholas said, “but Dems need to win some independents, and on the Republican side, they need to appeal to some Democrats.”

Millions of dollars have poured in, and Pennsylvanians have been pummeled by attack ads against two Republican Senate candidates: television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick. This has created an opening for conservative commentator Kathy Barnette to rise in the polls, which, in turn, has led Republican influencers such as former President Trump to criticize Barnette in the last week of the race.

The GOP gubernatorial primary had nine candidates until the campaign’s waning days, when state Sen. Jake Corman and former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart dropped out and threw support behind former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta of Hazelton.

The crowded field led the challengers to quarrel among themselves, with GOP leadership largely staying out of the fray. Experts said that gave far-right candidate Doug Mastriano a lane to establish a lead in polls, followed by Barletta, former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain and former Delaware County Councilman David White.

The in-party attacks come during a cycle with a lot on the line for both parties. The outcome of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race could determine who controls the upper chamber come 2023. And Republicans have a rare opportunity to secure a trifecta in state government if they secure the governor’s mansion.

Usually in such important races, the heavy punches are reserved for the general election campaign, as parties want to avoid damaging a candidate who they will have to support come fall.

As such, this contentious primary has some political and campaign experts agreeing that a general election is going to be a tougher lift, especially among Republicans.

“This is a fine strategy in a midterm primary but a lousy strategy in a general election,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University. “It works great with the base but not when you are trying to reach 50%-plus-one vote that you need in the general.”

GOP U.S. Senate race

Advertising tracker Medium Buying said the Republican Senate primary has attracted more than $53 million in television and radio ads. Most of those ads have been from Oz and McCormick, with Oz attempting to link McCormick to investments his former hedge fund made in China and McCormick trying to portray Oz as a phony conservative who supports abortion and gun restrictions.

These attacks have hurt two candidates who otherwise look and sound like electable candidates for the general election and have advanced the idea that McCormick and Oz are superficial, Dagnes said.

“No one believes that Dave McCormick rides a motorcycle,” Dagnes said, referencing one of McCormick’s ads. “It feels inauthentic, and Oz also feels inauthentic.”

As those two candidates criticize each other, Dagnes said, that has created a void for Barnette to rise in the polls. A Trafalgar Group poll released last week had Barnette at 23%, just behind Oz at 25% and ahead of McCormick at 22%. The poll’s margin of error was 3%.

Barnette’s surge has led many in the GOP, including Trump, to try to discredit her. Barnette’s background has largely been ignored during the race, but her surge led to some of her past statements resurfacing, including homophobic tweets and past criticism of Trump when he was a presidential candidate in 2016.

Trump released a statement on Thursday saying Barnette “will never be able to win a General Election,” and that Oz has the best chance to win in the fall.

Duquesne University political science professor Lew Irwin said authenticity is what Republican primary voters are looking for, but come the general election, crossover appeal is necessary.

He said suburban voters in Allegheny County and Philadelphia are the ones who will decide the election because, numerically, that is where the most voters live. While Allegheny County has voted reliably Democratic, it provided more votes for Trump in 2020 than any county in the state.

“The problem for candidates is reaching across to appeal to those suburban Republican voters who are going to decide the outcome in the fall,” Irwin said.

GOP gubernatorial race

Another potential problem for Republicans is playing out in the GOP race for governor, though it has attracted less attention than the high-profile Senate race.

With less attention, there has been less involvement by Republican leadership and the field has remained crowded. Dagnes said more mainstream Republican candidates in the field have split support, boosting the support for the most far-right candidate in the field, Mastriano, a state senator from Franklin County. Some have criticized Mastriano for his ties to far-right groups affiliated with the QAnon conspiracy theory, and he has been subpoenaed by Congress in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Irwin said whichever GOP candidate emerges from the primary likely will have to move toward the center on some issues to appeal to swing voters.

Dagnes said it will be harder for the more conservative candidates such as Mastriano and Barnette to move to the center because it could cool support from hardline conservatives and seem inauthentic among the suburban moderates they are trying to win over.

“It’s possible to have two of the most extreme candidates winning, Mastriano and Barnette, and the pivot to the middle is not going to be easily done by these two candidates,” she said.

Democratic races

Fetterman has led throughout the Democratic Senate race, despite facing multiple attacks from his two main challengers, U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb of Mt. Lebanon and Philadelphia state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.

Both have been critical of an episode in which Fetterman, shotgun in hand, confronted a Black jogger he suspected of being involved in nearby gunfire. Lamb also has attempted to cast Fetterman as a socialist.

Irwin said the attacks didn’t gain much traction in the Democratic race. The latest Franklin & Marshall College poll has Fetterman, the former Braddock mayor, up by 39 percentage points. Fetterman appears to have capitalized on his successful run for lieutenant governor in 2018 and used the office to become well known among voters, Irwin said.

Fetterman also has raised the most money and spent the most on ads of any Democratic candidate by far.

If Fetterman earns the Democratic nomination, Irwin expects Republicans to attack him and attempt to label him as a socialist or too liberal for Pennsylvania. The effectiveness of that approach depends on who the GOP nominee is, he said.

If the GOP candidate can’t authentically move to the center and focus the race on inflation, gas prices and a return to post-pandemic normalcy, instead of allegations about election fraud, then Fetterman likely benefits, Irwin said.

“The real battleground is for the 5% to 10% of the electorate that really can go either way,” Irwin said.

Meanwhile, Shapiro, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, has been unopposed in the primary, allowing him to stay focused on many of the general election topics that Irwin mentioned.

Dagnes said Shapiro’s vulnerability comes down to who the GOP candidate is because he hasn’t faced many attacks yet. She said a candidate such as Barletta, considered more moderate than Mastriano, might give him more trouble in a general election.

Shapiro appears to think the same way. Last week, he released an ad essentially boosting Mastriano by comparing him to Trump. The ad highlights Mastriano’s role in writing a “heartbeat bill” that seeks to ban abortions after about six weeks following conception. It claims that Mastriano would ban abortion as well, saying Mastriano “wants to end vote by mail and he led the fight to audit the 2020 election.”

The ad finishes with: “If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.”