Echoing back to the mantras of former President Donald Trump campaigns, Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano on Newsmax stressed crowd sizes matter and "suppression polls" will not accurately capture the nature of his race.
"It's funny, Carl, Ron DeSantis in August when he came here to campaign for me in Pittsburgh, he's like, 'Doug, stay away from the polls in October, because they're going to show you behind,' just like they showed him behind," Mastriano told Saturday's "Wake Up America" host Carl Higbie.
"This time last year they had [Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn] Youngkin, there was no chance he was going to win in Virginia."
Mastriano noted even the long-revered The Trafalgar Group has him trailing, but he told Higbie "we're not seeing that" in his internal polling.
"It's kind of weird; what we're seeing on on the ground is record crowds, and in fact, Rasmussen says they're projecting Pennsylvania is going to break plus-five Republican," Mastriano continued. "That's more like we're seeing. My own, we're looking like more plus R-9."
Mastriano also noted his public campaign appearances go from intimate gatherings to full-blown rallies.
"This does not happen in gubernatorial races," Mastriano said.
"Two weekends ago, we were in Philly. We had a meet and greet in the morning — supposed to just be, you know, a few 100 people there; that's a small crowd for me, too, by the way — but it turned into a rally because too many people show up in the fire hall, 500 people."
Mastriano added just an hour and a half later north of Philadelphia, he had over 1,000 people show up.
"Never before have this been happening, you know, in a gubernatorial race," Mastriano said. "Wherever I go, our crowds are actually growing. Meanwhile, my opponent can't draw flies. He'll go to a city and have a dozen people show up."
Mastriano noted the wave of violent crime in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania as a state has come under Democrat Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running against him for governor.
Mastriano cannot fathom how anyone in the state can vote for Shapiro to be governor after allowing crime to run rampant.
"They're just so full of it," Mastriano said. "If you think about this, my opponent is the attorney general of Pennsylvania and has been the senior law enforcement official for six years."
The lawlessness is on Shapiro's regime, including rising homicides, carjacking, fentanyl deaths, theft, and "an open-air drug market," Mastriano added.
"My opponent, Josh Shapiro, has done nothing about that," Mastriano said. "He's turning a back on the African-American, Latino communities in the city. He doesn't care about their suffering."
The crime is also affecting the economy in the state, Mastriano, a 29-year Army veteran who retired as a colonel, said.
"Why would a business person stay, unless they're stuck?" he asked.
The polling needs to catch up to capturing the nature of Pennsylvania and the troubles being experiences under Democrat rule, Mastriano concluded.
"I do call these suppression polls and when you focus on making phone calls in the southeast and to a certain demographic, I mean, you're gonna get a certain result," he said.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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