HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — AP is reporting…Lou Barletta, the Republican Party’s Donald Trump-endorsed nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018, is running for governor of Pennsylvania.
Barletta, 65, becomes the most prominent figure to enter a 2022 governor’s race that Republicans have won every time in the past half-century when there is an outgoing Democratic governor and a first-term Democratic president.
Barletta, a former Hazleton mayor and four-term member of Congress, has far more electoral experience than any other potential challenger for the GOP nomination. That includes having introduced himself to voters in a statewide campaign in his 2018 loss to Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
“So people know me,” Barletta said in an interview. “I’m starting out with that advantage as well as I had 2.1 million votes in 2018. And that’s a good start as well.”
Barletta said that, if elected, he would focus on boosting the state’s economy, while also aiming to overhaul Pennsylvania’s election law and fight illegal immigration, a long-time pet issue for Barletta that helped build his political reputation.
Barletta’s only declared primary opponent is Joe Gale, a Montgomery County commissioner. After that, several others are seriously considering it. That includes U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser — who succeeded Barletta in Congress — and William McSwain, the top federal prosecutor in Philadelphia under Trump.
Barring something unforeseen, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro will seek the Democratic nomination. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is constitutionally term-limited.
Besides being at ease in front of a microphone, Barletta has another strength in a Republican primary: a relationship with Trump.
Barletta was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump in 2016′s Republican presidential primary.
He went on to serve as Trump’s campaign co-chair in Pennsylvania that year and on Trump’s transition team before becoming one of the former president’s biggest allies on Capitol Hill. (AP)
