Longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway touts Jake Corman’s bona fides in governor’s race
In a visit to Bethel Park on Monday, longtime GOP consultant Kellyanne Conway, a close confidante to Donald Trump who served in his White House, repeatedly sought to remind Republicans that the former president has not yet endorsed in the Pennsylvania governor’s race — and that if he does, it may as well end up being her client, state Sen. Jake Corman.
Conway, joining Corman for a town hall in the Crowne Plaza hotel ballroom near South Hills Village Mall, said the Senate president pro tempore is the best candidate in the race to push Trump’s “America First” agenda forward.
Being a stalwart for the Trump agenda and being “tied to” Trump are two different things, Conway told the crowd, and other candidates can “talk and preen like peacocks and say, ‘Donald Trump called me and I’m doing this, I’m doing that.’ ” None of it matters.
“It’s just not true. Don’t be fooled,” Conway said of any candidate having Trump’s backing, calling out state Sen. Doug Mastriano by name as a “show horse, not a workhorse.”
The evening not only solidified the presence of Trump in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but it showed that Corman believes he has the Trumpian bona fides and conservative record to lock down his support.
Asked by the Post-Gazette after the event to characterize the extent to which Corman is courting the former president’s endorsement, Conway, a pollster and senior adviser to the campaign, said her candidate has been strategic about making it clear to Trump that Corman would be honored to have his endorsement.
“It’s something that he obviously welcomes and pursues, but he’s smart and strategic about it, not cagey and squirrelly about it,” Conway said.
Corman himself did not talk much about Trump during the event, and instead kept his focus mostly on state issues. He railed against executive overreach, labeled himself a main line of defense against the out-of-control impulses of Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration and said he wants to restore power to the people — echoed by the large campaign sign, “People First,” behind him.
“Our country is not based on unilateral control. It’s based on checks and balances,” Corman said, touting the GOP caucus’s successful pursuit last year of constitutional amendments limiting a governor’s emergency powers.
Thanking the crowd of about 100 for fighting for freedom, Conway described an America in chaos, one where the cost of inflation is making it hard for people to afford necessities, not luxuries. She said the U.S. needs leaders like Corman at this moment in time; someone who stands on principle and can build consensus when necessary.
When it came time for questions from the audience, election integrity was at the forefront.
Corman, asked why he was “against” investigating the 2020 election, said he wasn’t — adding that the only body in Pennsylvania probing the race is the Senate GOP caucus. He said he was concerned about election integrity from the beginning, noting that he called for former Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar’s resignation the night of the election.
He told the crowd he’d favor eliminating no excuse mail-in balloting if he’s elected and sign a bill into law that would mandate voters show ID at the polls.
Corman said when Republicans championed the law — Act 77 — that allowed for mail-in ballots, the GOP thought it was a worthy trade-off for eliminating straight party voting. COVID-19 changed everything, he said.
Conway added that how mail-in balloting was used during the pandemic was “almost like a Frankenstein escaping the lab.”
The primary election is in May. Also running for the GOP nomination are former U.S. Reps. Lou Barletta and Melissa Hart, former U.S. attorney Bill McSwain, Delaware County businessman Dave White, GOP consultant Charlie Gerow and Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 3:00 PM.