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.
Brittany Yanick, Oz’s communication’s director, ascribed much of her candidate’s momentum to Trump’s backing and to a public sense that Oz fits the “America First” policy paradigm better than McCormick. The latter is a former hedge fund chief executive who has received rebukes from Oz and others for his more globalist record on China and international commerce.
“The most recent public poll has Dr. Mehmet Oz up several points,” Yanick told The Pennsylvania Daily Star via email. He’s surging at the right time. Voters are excited about his campaign and President Trump’s endorsement. They are also concerned about David McCormick’s deep ties to China and record of outsourcing Pennsylvania jobs to Asia.”
McCormick’s campaign could not be reached for comment. He and Oz were well ahead of all other Republican Senate hopefuls in the F&M Poll, but Trafalgar’s report indicated veteran and commentator Kathy Barnette is a close third with 18.4 percent. A spokesperson for Barnette wrote in an email that, despite Trump supporting someone else in the race, many conservative voters seem interested in an alternative to the front runners and thus Trump’s chiming in has surprisingly boosted her effort. The spokesperson added that voters want a Senate candidate who is a recent longtime resident of Pennsylvania, neither of which Oz or McCormick are.
“Voters do not like out of staters coming in and trying to buy our Senate seat,” he wrote. “Kathy and her husband have raised their family in PA.”
F&M and Trafalgar present wildly different figures when it comes to how many Republicans remain undecided; the former posits 43 percent do while the latter finds 17 percent aren’t yet sure. Which poll is more accurate in that regard could mean a lot to other GOP candidates like real-estate developer Jeff Bartos and former Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands, both of whom are well behind in both polls.
A spokesperson for Sands disputed the reliability of Trafalgar’s undecided figure, suggesting that 17 percent is typically how many voters remain undecided as they walk into the voting booth; to see such a low number of unsure voters a month before a primary is therefore unusual. The spokesperson attributed the finding to what he considers the poll’s faulty methodology, e.g., overuse of cellphone and social media surveying. He also said Sands’ record of working for Trump and her lack of negative press, in contrast to the “war of attrition” taking place between Oz and McCormick, should buoy her support among primary voters as the May 17 election gets closer.
Recent polling shows little change in the Keystone State’s Democratic contest for Senate. Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), a hard-line leftist who supported Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid, remains far ahead of U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA-17) — 41 percent to 17 percent, with 26 percent of the 356 Democrats surveyed saying they are undecided, according to the F&M poll.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Dr. Mehmet Oz” by Dr. Mehmet Oz. Photo “David McCormick” by Department of Defense. Background Photo “Title” by Martin Falbisoner. CC BY-SA 3.0.
