The race to lead the Pa. GOP is getting heated: ‘Full-blown cannibalism’

A candidate for Pennsylvania GOP chair is accusing his opponent’s backers of intimidation tactics and calling for a secret paper ballot in Saturday’s election.

“It’s politics at its ugliest,” said Bill Bachenberg, a Lehigh Valley businessman and longtime ally of President Donald Trump, who is running for chair against State Sen. Greg Rothman.

“You’ve got people’s political and economic livelihood being threatened, votes being traded where an individual says, ‘If you vote for Greg, we’ll make sure your chairman’s reinstated.’”

Rothman, who did not return a call for comment, has the backing of the party brass including leaders like Sen. Dave McCormick, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, and U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser. He appeared to be the runaway successor to current chair Lawrence Tabas after another candidate, Ted Christian, dropped out in December.

Then Bachenberg, who supported Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn the 2020 election, announced he was vying for the job and has positioned himself as the candidate of the party’s grass roots. He has been an outspoken critic of the party despite November’s wins.

“You look at the last election, the state GOP was nonexistent. The grass roots and volunteers of the state, that’s who brought the state home,” Bachenberg said.

The election Saturday in Gettysburg has created intraparty tension that the GOP chair from Adams County described as “full-blown cannibalism.”

While Republican insiders say they expect Rothman to prevail when the 350 GOP committee members vote this weekend, it’s unclear how some of the blistering public rebukes could affect party unity in the months ahead.

“The same power-hungry insiders who didn’t do the heavy lifting to earn this victory want to hijack it,” Charlotte Shaffer, the Adams County GOP chair, wrote in a letter sent to Tabas that she also posted on social media. “They want to seize control and push the grassroots back to the sidelines. This is unacceptable.”

Shaffer claims in the letter that elected officials from Harrisburg to D.C. have tried to coerce committee members into supporting Rothman.

She later describes the GOP as devouring itself over the course of the campaign. “At this rate, the Democrats won’t even have to fight us — there won’t be anything left but bones.”

GOP chairs from Clarion and Westmoreland Counties and Val Biancaniello, a Delaware County committeewoman, have also complained that committee members were being unduly pressured and called for secret ballots.

Rothman, 58, a real estate broker who has served in the state Senate for two years and the state House for seven, said in a brief phone interview in December, “I believe in the Republican Party, and I want to build on the successes that we just had in this election.”

His candidacy drew a flood of support from party leaders. McCormick, in a statement endorsing Rothman, said he would be an “outstanding chair to lead us forward.”

The south-central Pennsylvania native served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve for 10 years, previously led the Cumberland County GOP, and chairs the state Senate Game and Fisheries Committee.

More than three decades ago, in 1991, Rothman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to commit forgery stemming from a falsely attributed political mailer. The conviction was later expunged, and former Gov. Ed Rendell issued Rothman a pardon in 2011. Some of Bachenberg’s backers have brought the charge up in recent months.

The winner will replace Tabas, 71, the longtime Philadelphia-based general counsel to the party who has held the post as chair since 2019. Tabas was the only candidate nominated in 2019, and won the chairmanship unanimously as the party reeled from scandal. He replaced former chairman Val DiGiorgio of Chester County, who resigned following allegations of sexual harassment.

Andy Reilly, a committeeman with the Republican National Committee who backs Rothman, said he does not expect the push for secret ballots to prevail. He thinks it would require a vote to change the party bylaws, which specify a voice or roll-call vote, he said. Reilly said that the party held caucus votes across the state, some by paper ballot, ahead of the full committee vote, and that Rothman was clearly ahead.

“The folks calling for a secret ballot now are ones who have not fared well in caucuses and who think by changing the dynamic, it will change the vote,” Reilly said.

“Most people think we’re in the middle of an election. Changing the rules now? What are we, Democrats?”