Doug Mastriano has a secret. The Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor says he’s chosen someone to serve as the commonwealth’s next secretary of state — a position that will hold enormous power over the 2024 presidential election. But he won’t tell voters who it is.
In normal circumstances, that reticence to name a key appointment so early in a gubernatorial contest would hardly be notable. But secretary of state positions have attracted unprecedented attention since the 2020 election, as Republican candidates who have embraced the conspiracy theory that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump have lined up to run for positions that would give them the power to oversee future elections. And Mastriano is one of the nation’s foremost election skeptics: The state senator tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania, then bused supporters to Washington, D.C., on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Because Pennsylvania is one of just three states in which the governor appoints the secretary of state, the 2022 gubernatorial race is essentially a “Buy one, get one” deal for Republican election deniers: A Mastriano victory all but ensures that the next secretary of the commonwealth will be someone who shares his anti-democratic zeal toward the 2020 election and who could work closely with Mastriano to roll back voting rights, overhaul Pennsylvania’s election system or even refuse to certify future results, including in the 2024 presidential contest.
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