Right Wing Watch reported last month that Tim Barton, a national religious-right figure who follows in his father’s footsteps as a dispenser of false Christian nationalist history, had endorsed Dave Nissley, who was waging a challenge to a conservative leader of the state’s House Republicans in the state’s 100th legislative district. Nissley’s fell short in yesterday’s Pennsylvania primary. Incumbent Bryan Cutler, who has no Democratic challenger in the November election, won by a 54-46 margin.
Cutler had the backing of the county GOP committee, but Nissley was backed by the Citizens Alliance Pennsylvania, the state chapter of Gun Owners of America, and “far-right organizations from neighboring counties whose members detest the party establishment in Harrisburg,” including the Citizens Alliance Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Liberty Fund, the Berks County Patriots, and the PA Patriots Coalition. Rachel Wilson-Snyder, the county Moms for Liberty chair, attended the event at which Barton endorsed Nissley. Lancaster Online noted that right-wing groups, including FreePA, had also backed an unsuccessful primary challenger to Cutler in 2022.
LancasterOnline reported that Nissley’s challenge “benefited from a multi-year campaign” by MAGA activists unhappy that Cutler, who was speaker of the state house in 2020, had not used his position to flip the state’s electoral votes to Trump after Joe Biden won the state:
Three times in the weeks ahead of Jan. 6, dozens of pro-Trump protestors gathered outside Cutler’s home in Peach Bottom and his district office in Quarryville, demanding that he do more to help reverse the election results.
Cutler also received calls from Trump lawyers and was invited to the White House to meet with the president. He later told the House January 6 Committee that he had told the former president he did not have the power to stop Pennsylvania’s electoral votes from being awarded to Joe Biden.
Conservative discontent toward Cutler worsened when Trump blamed his loss in Pennsylvania on baseless claims of mass voter fraud, which the former president said was caused in part by the state’s newly enacted no-excuse mail-in ballot policy – established by Act 77 of 2019. Republican leaders, including Cutler, led the efforts to pass that law, which was widely thought to be a blow to Democrats because it did away with straight-ticket voting.
In a Facebook post this morning acknowledging his defeat, Nissley sounded a defiant note, quoting Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene: “We fight, get beat, and fight again.”
