News & Brews October 7, 2022

Make America Great Again, Inc., the new Trump-backed super PAC established last month, is entering the fray of the U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Bloomberg reports that the super PAC has booked $2.1 million in ad buys, including $1.3 million in Ohio to back Republican JD Vance and $770,000 in PA to support Republican Mehmet Oz. The story notes that MAGA PAC is being financed at least in part by Trump’s current leadership PAC, the Save America PAC, which had $93 million at the end of August, according to campaign finance filings. Read more at Bloomberg.

Democrat U.S. Senate nominee John Fetterman reported more than 595,000 donations from more than 330,000 individuals to raise a whopping $22 million from the beginning of July to the end of September. Meanwhile, Republican Mehmet Oz reported raising $17.2 million for the quarter, including $7 million Oz lent to his campaign. The Fetterman campaign said its haul is the highest ever by a U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania in one quarter, and one political analyst corroborated, noting, “Off the top of my head, it’s in record-breaking territory.” PennLive has more.

The Jewish Insider reports that in Pennsylvania, “Jewish Republicans are straddling party lines, their loyalties tested. They appear to be unifying around Dr. Mehmet Oz, the prominent talk show host and the party’s Senate nominee. But they also appear to be leaving gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano behind.” One source quoted said, “I think that Mastriano’s support in the Jewish Republican community isn’t zero, but it’s about as low as it — it’s pretty low.” Read the story here.

The Center Square reports that a new report from the state’s Independent Fiscal Office projects “flat state population growth in the near term and a slight decline in the long term (-0.1% annually).” Of particular concern is the past and projected population decline among young people. The IFO report notes, “The school age cohort (age 0 to 19) declined 0.4% per annum from 2010 to 2020 and is projected to decline 0.9% per annum in the near and long term,” adding “The working-age cohort (age 20 to 64) remained flat from 2010 to 2020 and is projected to contract by 0.6% per annum in the near term and 0.5% per annum in the long term. If labor force participation rates do not increase, then this trend will constrain economic and revenue growth in the future.”

On Wednesday, Americans for Prosperity PA held a roundtable in Coraopolis to discuss how small business owners struggling with employee health insurance costs could get relief through association health plans, which allow small businesses to join together to purchase insurance at lower costs. Among the speakers at the roundtable event was GOP Rep. Valerie Gaydos (Allegheny County), who has sponsored legislation that would help businesses join association health plans. The legislation has been sitting in committee.