Bradley Vasoli: Political parties should stop making primary endorsements

A month ago, President Donald Trump told Keystone Staters he’ll back Dan Meuser if the Ninth District Republican congressman runs for governor next year. 

Despite this, Stacy Garrity is racking up support from GOP nabobs like former National Committeeman Bob Asher, Warren County Republican Chair Kathy Kemp Jensen, and Wayne County GOP Chair Steve Adams. The state treasurer got 41.1% backing from conservative activists who attended the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference (PLC) in April, though Trump’s preference for Meuser would shrink her lead, if not erase it. 

In short, just under one year out, the Republican contest for the gubernatorial nomination is competitive. 

Many powerful Republicans hate that. And they’ll try to stop it.

To prevent primary fights in Pennsylvania, both major parties endorse candidates, boosting their campaigns and sometimes scaring unendorsed contenders out of the race. Ask some Republicans what this achieves, and they’ll tell the following story. 

They’ll insist the party did what it could to defeat soon-to-be Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro three years ago, but state Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Chambersburg) just wouldn’t run the disciplined, appealing campaign needed to win.

So far, pretty accurate.

Republican institutionalists then admit a presumed misstep: Their state organization didn’t endorse an alternative to Mastriano in the primary. Former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain, former Delaware County Councilman Dave White, and former Congressman Lou Barletta all polled competitively among Republican electors. The GOP, they say, could have recommended one of them to voters, sewn up the nomination, and prevented Mastriano’s disastrous 14.8-point loss. 

Fear not, the wheeler-dealers promise: We won’t make that mistake again. We’ll endorse someone, sparing ourselves a Mastriano-style debacle. 

Never mind that neither Meuser nor Garrity is a Mastriano-esque candidate. Both are friendly to the president, but neither match the previous nominee’s brambly rhetoric or inept campaigning. Mastriano himself has discussed running again, but he received under 7% in the PLC straw poll. He poses no threat. 

Even so, many Republican committee members swear by the party’s endorsement system, arguing it is the surest way to choose the sharpest candidate — someone who can fundraise and message proficiently.

And despite state Republican committeepersons’ refusal to endorse in the 2022 governor’s race, the two major parties often do so in both statewide and regional elections without giving the move a second’s thought. As a local GOP committeeman myself in Montgomery County, I hope against hope that we stop.

For one thing, endorsements often prove a waste of resources. Remember, Republican electors spanked 2012 gubernatorial endorsee Steve Welch twice over, giving him 20.9% to Tom Smith’s 39.5% and Sam Rohrer’s 22.3%. 

Kingmaking failed again weeks ago when GOP voters favored Commonwealth attorney Maria Battista over Chester County President Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft for Superior Court by more than 11%. 

Even when endorsements don’t happen, the politically unconnected occasionally snub the party. After Republican conferees nominated then state Representative Ron Miller to run in a special 2014 state Senate election in York County, Scott Wagner’s write-in effort annihilated both Miller and Democrat Linda Small.

Mastriano’s own primary win impresses the same point. Republican higher-ups in several southeastern county committees picked their favorites in that race, but voters ignored the sample ballots they were handed showing the recommendations. In Montgomery County, voters put both Mastriano and McSwain ahead of the endorsed White. Endorsements often do put a candidate over the top, but only when the party puts real money behind them.

While no one believes Mastriano would have dropped out once he faced party opposition, some argue the GOP would have coalesced around one other winnable candidate, eclipsing the senator’s lead. With such a crowded field, that’s unlikely. And even if all but one of the stronger candidates backed out, Mastriano might have still won as he would have gotten many of the potential dropouts’ voters, especially the populist Barletta’s. 

But while endorsements don’t help voters pick winning candidates, they do plenty else, none of it good. 

First, they drive many good candidates out of the running for fear they can’t win without the party’s imprimatur. Time and again, aspirants publicly declare they won’t run unblessed. Perversely, the most unhinged, incompetent candidates keep running anyway because they consider the endorsement the mark of Cain. 

Second, endorsements are compelled speech. (No, cut it out, I’m not saying they’re unconstitutional.) They cow committee members who prefer one candidate into championing another when those members greet voters at the polls. In some counties, like my own, the committee can remove a member who defies the endorsement and hands out literature reflecting his own preferences. 

Some committeepeople provide their own handouts anyway. I’m one of many who have done this at least once before and might do it again depending on the endorsee. The party often threatens to eject those who do, but it carries out that threat rarely and arbitrarily. 

Committeepeople will occasionally defend endorsements by asking, What would we do if we didn’t take these votes? The ones who say this are confessing laziness, given the long list of important tasks the committee must perform, e.g., organizing and fundraising.

In the special cases of school board and judicial elections, party primary recommendations serve a purpose, though there’s a better alternative. Pennsylvania allows aspiring school directors and judges to cross-file, i.e., to seek the opposite party’s nomination as well as their own. Endorsements keep the opposing side’s candidates from winning that way. Yet even without endorsing, parties could easily mark their sample ballots to show who is registered Republican or Democratic.

Sometimes status quo defenders observe that partisan dignitaries will go on making endorsements themselves. So what? If they can’t coerce volunteers to side with them, they can go right ahead.

Almost certainly, state parties and most county chapters won’t ditch this blend of compelled speech and cancel culture next year. Committee members who want it gone someday need to speak up.

Bradley Vasoli is the senior editor of The Independence.