The far-right Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, conceded the race to Democrat Josh Shapiro on Sunday, five days after Shapiro was projected as the winner.
“Difficult to accept as the results are, there is no right course but to concede, which I do, and I look to the challenges ahead. Josh Shapiro will be our next Governor, and I ask everyone to give him the opportunity to lead and pray that he leads well,” Mastriano wrote in a statement.
Earlier on Sunday, Shapiro told CNN that it doesn’t matter if Mastriano conceded the race.
“Who cares if he calls, right?” Shapiro said. “He doesn’t get to pick the winner, the people pick the winner.”
Mastriano, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, rose to prominence in the Pennsylvania GOP by promoting the former president’s baseless claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
In his statement on Sunday, Mastriano called for reform of Pennsylvania’s electoral system.
“Pennsylvania is in great need of election reform,” Mastriano wrote. “As I write this, the final results of the 2022 Mid-term Elections are still not available. We can and must do better to make our elections more transparent, secure and more quickly decided. Pennsylvanians deserve to have faith in our elections.”
Shapiro is currently leading Mastriano by more than 14 percentage points or 760,000 votes.
