Corman’s MAGA leanings

The Senate leader took a noticeable shift in recent days about the 2020 vote.

By Andrew Seidman STAFF WRITER and Angela Couloumbis SPOLIGHT PA


HARRISBURG — After Jake Corman was elected by his colleagues in January to the top position in the Pennsylvania Senate, he recalled stepping inside the chamber when he was 12 years old to watch his father sworn in as a state senator. “In a way, I’ve been part of this institution of the Senate for over 40 years,” Corman told lawmakers. For months, the Centre County Republican walked a fine line as the movement to discredit the 2020 election results won support from some of his pro-Trump colleagues. No, there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud, he said in November. But, he wrote in a January letter to Congress, there were “inconsistencies” that needed to be investigated.

As recently as June, he assured colleagues he was focused squarely on the future: “We don’t need to relitigate 2020.” That all came crashing down last week, as Corman the institutionalist made common cause with conspiracy theorists and MAGA diehards. He committed to conducting a “full forensic investigation” of the election — an idea fueled by baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and modeled off the widely criticized partisan review in Arizona. Now, Corman will have to straddle the politically tenuous process of carrying out a complicated — and likely very expensive — audit that many senators in his Republican caucus do not fully support. And he must do so without the backing of the one Republican senator and uber-Trump supporter, Doug Mastriano of Franklin County, who has become the face of the election denial movement in Pennsylvania.

In a rare show of power, Corman last week unceremoniously stripped Mastriano of his leadership role in carrying out the review, tapping another conservative senator to replace him. The power move almost immediately called into question Corman’s reasoning and motives: What caused the rift? Was it a legitimate disagreement over process or a bald-faced move to politically kneecap Mastriano, who has a close relationship with Donald Trump and who, over the last year, has amassed a vocal and forceful following of the former president’s supporters not just in Pennsylvania but across the country?

How Corman walks this political tightrope will be the first real test of his leadership. It could also affect not just his reelection next year but any potential hopes for higher office. “Mastriano’s the one guy who’s been fighting from the beginning. Sen. Corman says that we will have a full forensic audit of the 2020 election, and we’re taking him at his word,” said C. Arnold McClure, chairman of the local GOP in Huntingdon County, part of which is in Corman’s district.“What will this all mean down the road? Sen. Corman’s longevity in office is endangered. I expect Mastriano to stay around for a while.”Jason Thompson, a spokesperson for Corman, said the senator wasn’t available for an interview. Thompson did not respond to emailed questions.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/jake-corman-pennsylvania-senate-election-audit-20210826.html