Eight Pennsylvania state Republicans, including GW Bush’s one-time Homeland Security Secretary, have announced their support for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro over Republican Trumpist Doug Mastriano, the York Daily Record reports.

“I dedicated my career in public service to upholding the rule of law and defending the Constitution. Right now, we all have a responsibility to support candidates of whichever party who will stand up and defend our democracy,” said Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary under Republican President GW Bush, adding,  “I am deeply troubled by Doug Mastriano’s embrace of dangerous extremism.”

Along with Chertoff, seven state legislators including one who served in the US Commerce Department during the Reagan Administration, have joined nine other Pennsylvania Republicans who earlier expressed in their support for Shapiro.  Republicans are fleeing Mastriano’s camp as he plummets more into Trumpism and as other scandals–including a photo of Mastriano wearing the uniform of a Confederate soldier’s uniform during an education program at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania–have come to light.

Mastriano has alienated a number of mainstream Republicans with his continuing claims that the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania and other states were rigged to favor President Joe Biden.  Mastriano has also stated his desire to govern Pennsylvania under his view of his “christian” faith as well as making the state “the Florida of the north.”