PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Perhaps hoping to send a jolt of energy through Doug Mastriano’s gubernatorial campaign, former President Donald Trump called into a telephone rally with the candidate on Tuesday night and said he’d be a key line of defense against the impulses of the “radical left” in Pennsylvania at a time the country, at large, is suffering.

Trump repeatedly praised Mastriano as a day one ally, supporter and friend and rattled off a list of his campaign platform positions, drawing parallels to his own presidential administration. Mastriano, a Republican state senator, is entering the final full month of his campaign against Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state’s sitting attorney general.

”You see what’s happened to our country. The stock market is crashing. Everything’s going bad,” Trump said on the call. “We have to stop it. We have to elect people like Doug Mastriano. In this case, he has to go to that governor’s mansion … because Pennsylvania’s in trouble, our country’s in trouble and a man like Doug Mastriano will solve the problem.”

Item by item, Trump hit on some of the biggest themes of the race, framing Mastriano as a fighter for the “Make America Great Again” agenda that continues to galvanize the GOP base across the country. Mastriano used that energy — and the late backing by Trump — to win a crowded Republican primary in May despite members of the Republican establishment banning together against him.

Trump, on numerous occasions during the call, mentioned Mastriano’s work on “election integrity,” and said the senator defended it from the beginning.

”Nobody felt more strongly or feels more strongly about election integrity than Doug,” Trump said, adding, “Maybe me — I’m not sure.”

Mastriano was heavily involved in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, was at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and has insisted he will appoint a secretary of state — if elected — “who will secure our elections from fraud.”

He’s listed electoral reform as one of his main priorities, and — according to his website — will partner with the state Legislature to “eliminate ‘no excuse’ mail-in voting, get rid of drop boxes and pass universal voter ID.”

Shapiro’s team has used Mastriano’s position and past statements to argue that he’s intent on rolling back voting rights and using his power as governor to help Trump win the 2024 election in Pennsylvania, if the former president decides to run again.

On the call, Trump said Shapiro pushed the “illegal, unconstitutional mass mail-in voting scam to rig the 2020 election.”

”And it was indeed rigged. We won Pennsylvania by a lot,” said Trump, who lost the race in the state by about 80,000 votes en route to losing re-election to the presidency.

According to The Associated Press, there were fewer than 475 instances of potential voter fraud in the six states disputed by Trump after the 2020 election — which would have made no difference in the final results.

The Shapiro campaign, in a fundraising email before Trump’s tele-rally, said the former president and Mastriano worked together to try to overturn the 2020 election.

”This election is too important to let Trump sway the results,” campaign manger Dana Fritz wrote in the email, alleging that Trump knows Mastriano will help him win in 2024 if elected governor.

Echoing Republicans across the country who have used the crisis on the southern border as an argument ahead of the midterms, Trump said Mastriano has taken on the issue directly, citing a bill he introduced in Harrisburg that would impose a remittance fee on illegal immigrants and, in return, provide property tax relief for Pennsylvanians.

The bill, which would tax international remittances that migrants send home to support their families, was referred to the Senate’s banking and insurance committee in March. There’s been no movement since.

During the call, Trump targeted Shapiro repeatedly, calling him a “lightweight” who would be a disaster if elected governor. He accused Shapiro of being “weak on crime” as attorney general and urged voters to remember rising violent crime rates when voting in November.

Trump said Shapiro also supports defunding the police, “without saying so too loudly.” Mastriano, meanwhile, will restore law and order, the former president added.

In an interview with Fox News recently, Shapiro pledged to boost funding for law enforcement and add more than 2,000 officers across the state, as long as it comes with accountability measures and a commitment to community policing.

Leaning into an issue that’s been at the forefront of the gubernatorial race, Trump called Shapiro an “abortion extremist” who supports “unrestricted abortion on-demand right up until the moment of birth, even after birth.” It’s up to Pennsylvania voters to rescue the state from the radical left, he added.

Shapiro has said he supports current Pennsylvania law — banning abortion after 23 weeks except when the woman’s life or health is at risk — and would veto any effort to restrict abortion beyond it.

Mastriano has said he’d support a ban on abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake.

”We can fulfill and achieve most of our desires in protecting life when we win on eight November,” Mastriano said on a call last week with the Pro-Life Coalition of Pennsylvania, according to WESA.

He added that he’d sign into law either a “heartbeat bill or the fetal pain bill,” which — WESA reported — would limit abortion access based on assertions about whether a fetus feels pain.

The election is Nov. 8.