Former Rep. Lou Barletta changes the calculus on Pa. GOP gubernatorial primary

Former congressman Lou Barletta, the failed 2018 U.S. Senate candidate and frequent Donald Trump surrogate at campaign events last year, changed the calculus for Pennsylvania’s 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary with his official campaign announcement Monday.

Barletta, 65, a four-term congressmen who sprang to national prominence 15 years ago as the mayor of a small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania determined to oust illegal immigrants, was rumored to be considering a run for months. Last month, he formed an exploratory committee. Monday, he made it official with an announcement on YouTube.

“Lou entering the race is significant. You have a Trump loyalist with deep, strong connections to the former president who is, by almost all measures, still very popular among the Republican primary electorate in the state,” said Muhlenberg College political scientist and pollster Chris Borick. “Those elements certainly make him a major player in the race.”

Barletta’s Trump ties run deep. He was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump in the 2016 presidential primary. He joined the Trump transition team and, at Trump’s request, opted to seek election to the Senate in 2018, a race he lost to Sen. Bob Casey by 13 percentage points.

He was Trump’s Pennsylvania co-chair last year and traveled the state campaigning for him.

Barletta told the Associated Press he hopes to earn the former president’s endorsement.

Next year, Republicans will have history on their side. Pennsylvania voters typically change the party in the governor’s mansion every eight years.

Moreover, Barletta is the only candidate so far with statewide name exposure, as well as experience as a business owner, small town mayor and congressman.

Lowman Henry, a Westmoreland County native who directs the Lincoln Institute for Public Policy and is a member of the GOP state committee from Dauphin County, said those who follow Barletta were not surprised. The former congressman has been alluding to a possible gubernatorial run for the last year on social media.

“He’ll be the 800-pound gorilla in the race. He’s got charisma, and he’s got statewide name identification,” Henry said.

As for his prior losses, both in his initial runs for Congress and his recent Senate run, Henry said many candidates have had to make multiple stabs at statewide office before finally winning.

“Bob Casey, Arlen Specter, Pat Toomey — all lost races before they finally won,” Henry said.

“I think (Barletta) knows that this cycle in Pennsylvania, which is likely to be one where Republicans have a bit of a tailwind behind them, is a good opportunity to try to win a major statewide office. He sees the opening, he sees the timing, he sees the electorate and he’s ready to capitalize on it,” Borick said.

To date, only Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale said he plans to run in the primary. Others considering a run include state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Franklin County Republican who campaigned with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani last weekend; Bill McSwain, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania who formed an exploratory committee last month; U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, who succeeded Barletta in Congress; and Rep. Mike Kelly of Butler, who filed several lawsuits against Pennsylvania’s mail-in election law.

Political consultant Jeff Coleman, a former state lawmaker who represented portions of the Alle-Kiski Valley, said Barletta’s entry into the race is a question mark that will need to be resolved as months go by.

“With every campaign that comes in, there is the ‘why,’ ” Coleman said. “What is he angry about? What is he concerned about? Is there any nuance about what would have been said at a Trump rally, and is there anything else?”

But Phil Harold, a political scientist at Robert Morris University in Moon, said the issues of the day were tailor-made for Barletta.

“Barletta will shake up that race,” Harold said. “I think he’ll be appealing to a lot of Republicans. Immigration flared up as such an issue right away in the Biden presidency. He could certainly capitalize on that right away with his backdrop.”

Long before Trump burst onto the Republican presidential scene in 2015 with a campaign announcement blasting Mexico for sending drug runners and rapists among a wave of illegal immigrants, Barletta seized on the issue of illegal immigration. During his tenure as Hazelton mayor, from 2000 to 2010, immigrants began streaming into the town, swelling the Hispanic population from about 5% to about 35% in a period of several years. Citing an increase in violent and drug-related crimes, Barletta advocated for an ordinance that would fine business owners and landlords for hiring or housing illegal immigrants.

Even with problems at the border mushrooming in the months since Biden’s inauguration, immigration could become a double-edged sword for Barletta. Hazelton’s ordinances ultimately were struck down in federal court, and a federal judge ordered Hazelton to pay $1.4 million in legal fees for the plaintiffs who challenged the law. Other small towns likewise faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees defending such laws.

Nonetheless, Barletta fared well in rural communities and small towns in his 2018 Senate bid, besting Casey in places such as Westmoreland, Washington, Butler, Fayette, Lancaster and York counties.

While he is well-positioned in the primary and seems to have the history of Pennsylvania’s election cycles on his side, Barletta could find himself in a tough battle in the general election. Pennsylvania, which gave Joe Biden a slight edge in the November 2020 election, still boasts a substantial Democratic registration edge.

In the video announcing his candidacy, Barletta, a strong public speaker, talks about his Pennsylvania roots. He emphasizes his determination to fight the forces attacking fossil fuels, calling for defunding police and moving to establish sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants. He also takes on Gov. Tom Wolf’s pandemic shutdown, accusing him of harming small business, closing schools and condemning frail nursing home patients to exposure to covid-19.

If nominated, Barletta likely will face Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The presumed Democratic front-runner gained national attention in 2018 with his sweeping grand jury investigation of child sexual abuse among Catholic clergy.