Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joining Doug Mastriano for Pittsburgh appearance

Sen. Doug Mastriano has booked a Republican A-lister to help boost his campaign for governor of Pennsylvania.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has committed, the Mastriano campaign announced Monday, to an Aug. 19 appearance with Mastriano in Pittsburgh. It’s part of a series of swing state rallies being organized ahead of the mid-term elections by the conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, with other DeSantis stops scheduled for Arizona and Ohio.

It was not immediately clear if Pennsylvania’s Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz will be there.

DeSantis has been held up by Mastriano, the Republican state senator running against Attorney General Josh Shapiro to succeed Gov. Tom Wolf, at various stops this year as the kind of governor whose policies he’d like to emulate, and the two have shared battle scars from being early and outspoken objectors to many of the restrictions associated with the coronavirus pandemic.

DeSantis has also emerged as one of the leading alternatives to former President Donald J. Trump as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024.

In that sense, some observers said, the campaign visit could help activate Mastriano’s base, but it’s also not a bad investment of time for a guy who might have other ambitions.

“He’s clearly positioning himself to be the post-Trump leader of the party, and so far, so good,” Stephen Medvic, a government professor at Franklin & Marshall College, said of DeSantis Monday. “He seems to be a very talented politician. He knows how to troll liberals and that’s a big part of Republican Party politics now. He’s very smart. So he seems like he would be a formidable candidate.”

A New York Times / Siena College poll of national Republicans last month showed Trump, (top preference of 49 percent) is still the clear favorite of the party faithful, but DeSantis (25%) had carved out a clear second place in a list that also that also included U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, (7%), former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, (both 6%).

What no one knows just yet, of course, is whether DeSantis - facing his own re-election fight in Florida this year - will actually make a run at the presidency.

Asked about a national anti-DeSantis ad produced and aired by California Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, DeSantis declared that national politics is not his top priority just yet: “Everybody wants to talk about me and Florida,” DeSantis said. “I’m just sitting here, little old me, doing my job.”

In the meantime, Andy Reilly, one of Pennsylvania’s members on the Republican National Committee, said the shared stage is a good thing for Mastriano, as DeSantis’s record in Florida makes him a “huge campaign asset….

“Gov. DeSantis knows the importance of electing a fiscally conservative, pro-growth governor like Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania to create a political climate to restart our economy and create high-paying jobs where families can see wage growth that exceeds the Biden-era inflation,” Reilly said.

Turning Point Action is the political advocacy arm of Turning Point USA, a non-profit that woks to provide an organized conservative voice for college and high school students across the country.