Attempts by Democrats to shame 21 conservative lawmakers by tying them to the Jan. 6 uprising at the US Capitol and rhetoric claiming vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election have backfired.
‘His Street Cred Went Up’: The Unintended Consequences of Outing the GOP Lawmakers at Jan. 6… this @rubycramer feature chronicles how DLCC effort to hold GOP backers of election lies accountable may have backfired. https://t.co/jikx8WQOXP via @politico
— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) October 18, 2021
Instead, the notoriety gained from the attempts by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee to campaign against the 21 GOP politicians has caused them to gain bigger online followings “and in at least three instances are now campaigning for statewide office having aligned themselves with former President Donald Trump,” said The Week.
One lawmaker, Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, is preparing a run for governor, in part, because of the credibility that the DLCC attacks, which have included digital attack ads, have given him.
“Mastriano, a 57-year-old retired Army colonel representing a south-central district that includes Gettysburg, had been a scheduled speaker at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally on Jan. 6, spending campaign funds to bus down Trump supporters to Washington for the event,” said Politico.
Mastriano said he left the event when it became violent, and there is no evidence that entered the Capitol or incited violence, although Democrats have tried to connect him to the breach .
“His street cred went up,” complained Jay Costa, the Democratic minority leader in the Pennsylvania state Senate about the result of the DLCC attacks on Mastriano. “There’s no question.”
Mastiano’s ascent also has made him a thorn in the side of the state Senate’s GOP leadership—in particular, his unyielding attempt at getting Pennsylvania to do an audit of the 2020 election.
He was removed as a committee chair on the election committee, stripped of his staff in his Harrisburg and ousted from closed-door meetings among Republican senators for his insistence on a forensic audit of the 2020 election results, said the Daily York Record.
But at least the DLCC stopped attacking him and his 20 conservative colleagues.
“DLCC officials say they have no current plans to spend against the 21 Republicans on its list, in part because they are waiting to see the results of redistricting, and partly because many of them, such as Mastriano, are in safely red districts,” said Politico.
