Josh Shapiro speaks at his campaign kickoff rally at Penn State-Abington in
October 2021. 
Photo by Jarrad Saffren
up the core of his campaign,” Will
Simons said.

Marisa Nahem, a communica-
tions adviser for the Pennsylvania
Democratic Party, also chimed in on
July 22 on behalf of the party.

“Mastriano’s association with Gab
— a ‘haven’ for white supremacists,
violent extremists and antisemites that
was ‘key’ in the deadliest attack on
Jewish people in U.S. history — is the
latest example of why Mastriano is the
most dangerous gubernatorial candi-
date in Pennsylvania history,” she said.

The Pittsburgh press conference
organized by the Shapiro campaign on
July 21, which also aired on Facebook
Live, featured several elected officials
from the city, including state Senate
Democratic Leader Jay Costa, State
Rep. Dan Frankel, who represents the
district that includes Tree of Life, and
Councilman Rev. Ricky Burgess. All
echoed similar themes.

Costa said Mastriano did this “pur-
posefully,” to reach people with “hate
in their heart.” Frankel called Gab “a
festering cesspool of intolerance” that
sees Black and brown people, LGBTQ+
people and Muslims as threats to the
“white nationalist vision that unifies
Gab users.”
Burgess concluded that Mastriano’s
Gab account showed his allegiance to
former President Donald Trump, who
has endorsed Mastriano, and to the
“basket of deplorables” on the site.

With that last line, Burgess was quot-
ing the description of many Trump
supporters offered by Hillary Clinton
during the 2016 election.

“He believes the hatred on those mes-
sage boards will translate into an elec-
tion victory for him on Nov. 8,” Frankel
said of Mastriano. “But I believe he is
wrong about Pennsylvania.”
Even the Republican Jewish Coalition
seems to agree with this last state-
ment. Matt Brooks, the organization’s
executive director, said that Mastriano
should be trying to win over Jewish
Republicans by calling out antisemi-
tism and focusing more on Shapiro’s
“big government agenda.”
“Doug Mastriano’s campaign unfortu-
nately seems intent on sending a message
of exclusion,” Brooks said. “We strongly
urge Doug Mastriano to end his associa-
tion with Gab, a social network rightly
seen by Jewish Americans as a cesspool
of bigotry and antisemitism.”
Mastriano’s campaign did not make
the candidate available for an interview
or offer a response to questions. JE
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com. David
Rullo of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle,
an affiliated paper, contributed to this
report. F TAY-SACHS
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