After an uninterrupted stretch of good polling news for Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman (D) in his U.S. Senate race against Republican celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz, major analysts now suggest the race could go either way.
The Cook Political Report and the data aggregator FiveThirtyEight both came out with assessments of recent survey data leading them to conclude Oz can win.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz’s campaign on Thursday excoriated his opponent, Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, for bringing on two convicted murderers as campaign staffers.
The celebrity surgeon and the National Republican Senate Committee cited Federal Election Commission filings indicating the lieutenant governor’s campaign employs Lee and Dennis Horton, who were both convicted of second-degree murder in 1993, having been found to have aided Robert Leaf in a theft-related killing of a man before fleeing the scene.
Read the full story
The Cook Political Report this week changed its description of the Pennsylvania Senate race from “toss up” to “lean Democrat,” signaling trouble for Republican candidate Mehmet Oz, even as Democrat John Fetterman struggles with his return to the campaign trail.
Cook’s shifting outlook on the Senate contest is partly a response to figures on the FiveThirtyEight data-analysis website showing that Oz, a celebrity doctor, trails Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, by an average of 11.5 percentage points.
Read the full story
Kathy Barnette, a Republican former U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, hinted on Monday at possibly supporting primary winner Mehmet Oz, something she previously refused to do.
An Army Reserve veteran, political commentator and former adjunct finance professor who lives in Huntingdon Valley — a Montgomery County town neighboring Bryn Athyn where Oz lives — Barnette earlier balked at voting for the celebrity surgeon. On Primary Election Day, May 17, the eventual third-place finisher declared she had “no intentions of supporting globalists,” referring to Oz and fellow top-tier candidate Dave McCormick.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), a candidate for U.S. Senate, released a statement Friday indicating serious unaddressed health problems preceded the stroke he suffered in the days leading up to the May 17 primary.
Fetterman called the heart clot which caused the stroke “preventable,” as he recalled he should have heeded medical advice following a visit to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center East in 2017. He went to the hospital to have this then-swollen feet examined. After assessing Fetterman’s foot condition and vital signs cardiologist Ramesh R. Chandra diagnosed him with an irregular heartbeat, atrial fibrillation (which means the heart’s upper chambers beat inconsistently with the lower chambers) and a decreased heart pump.
Read the full story
Attorneys for Senate candidate Dave McCormick on Monday found themselves in the atypical position of arguing in Commonwealth Court alongside Pennsylvania’s Democratic Secretary of State about which ballots to count.
The Republican and former hedge-fund executive is challenging the vote-counting standard that has determined the gap of 922 votes between him and his leading primary opponent, celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz.
Read the full story
The determination of Pennsylvania’s unsettled Republican Senate nomination battle between Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick could depend on a federal court decision regarding undated mail-in ballots.
As of Sunday afternoon, Oz held 418,535 votes to McCormick’s 417,465, putting the former ahead by far less than the 0.5 percent maximum gap that triggers an automatic recount. While over 99 percent of all ballots cast in the election have been counted, an ongoing dispute about whether undated absentee ballots should be deemed valid has the potential to erase Oz’s lead.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary between celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz and former hedge-fund chief executive officer Dave McCormick remains unresolved the day after voters went to the polls.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Oz leads McCormick by 1,610 votes out of more than 1.3 million votes cast for GOP Senate nominee in total. Oz has 410,822, or 31.29 percent of the vote while McCormick has 409,212 or 31.17 percent. The insurgent candidacy of veteran and political commentator Kathy Barnette gained 323,700 or 24.66 percent while four other candidates split the rest of the vote.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania Republicans on Tuesday gave State Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) the nod to face state Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) in the race for governor this year.
The Democratic Party also nominated Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) for the Senate seat from which Republican Pat Toomey will retire at the end of 2022. At this writing, the GOP primary contest for that seat remains too close to call between top-tier candidates David McCormick and Mehmet Oz.
Read the full story
Some security and foreign-policy experts are raising questions about a 2018 photograph showing Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz voting in that year’s Turkish presidential election.
Oz holds dual citizenship in in the United States and Turkey; his parents moved from the latter to the former in the 1960s. The celebrity doctor, who is running for Pennsylvania Senate with the support of former President Donald Trump, has promised that he will renounce his Turkish citizenship if he wins retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey’s seat in November.
Read the full story
New polling shows Mehmet Oz pulling slightly ahead of David McCormick in the Republican Pennsylvania Senate primary for the first time since the latter announced his run in January.
The latest Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) Poll, conducted from March 30 to April 10, showed Oz with 16 percent of support among 317 registered Republicans compared with McCormick’s 15 percent, a statistical tie. Yet another survey by the Republican-aligned Trafalgar Group conducted between April 10 and 13 found Oz leading 22.7 percent to 19.7 percent among 1,074 polled Republicans, just slightly outside the 2.99-percent margin of error. The latter polling took place after former President Donald Trump endorsed the celebrity surgeon two Saturdays ago.
Read the full story
In the day since Donald Trump endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz for Senate in Pennsylvania Saturday evening, many supporters of the former president criticized the move.
Even Sean Parnell, the Pittsburgh-area Army veteran who had Trump’s endorsement in the Republican primary until dropping out last November, expressed disappointment with the erstwhile chief executive via Twitter on Sunday.
Read the full story
Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who’s running for Senate from Pennsylvania, is denying reports that he is in discussions to return to television and suggested opponent David McCormick is behind the rumor.
The entertainment site Radar Online reported Tuesday that inside sources said that while Oz aims to win the May 17 Republican primary and the November 8 election for retiring Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R) seat, he’s working on reviving his broadcast career in case he doesn’t prevail.
Read the full story