In Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate, the television host Dr. Mehmet Oz has netted the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
But Oz has angered some conservatives with his past statements on a salient issue: abortion. And in the heart of “Trump country” they’re pushing back against the 45th president.
A number of GOP-aligned groups say they have found their candidate: political commentator Kathy Barnette.
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Barnette has spoken about her own experience with unplanned pregnancy.
In a recent video, Barnette said her mother became pregnant with her after a rape at the age of 11.
Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group, backed Barnette over Oz on Tuesday. The fiscally conservative Club for Growth endorsed Barnette the following day, and it began airing TV ads on her behalf.
“Kathy is a courageous advocate for life who exposes the human cost of abortion,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Oz has become haunted by his statements from 2019.
“At a personal level, I wouldn’t want anyone in my family to have an abortion. I told my kids this, I love the lives that they’re creating so much that I personally wouldn’t want it,” Oz said on the radio at the time, according to PolitiFact. “But I don’t want to interfere with everyone else’s stuff, because it’s hard enough getting through life as it is.”
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Oz also criticized Alabama’s restriction on abortion. According to PolitiFact, he said:
You want to ban abortion, make that loud and clear, but there’s going to be a big sucking sound of businesses leaving there… If someone deep in their heart feels that the moment of conception is a human life, and they just can’t deal with that life being harmed, they got to be heard, they can’t get ignored. But that doesn’t mean that’s what the rule of the land is…
As a doctor, just putting my doctor hat on, it’s a big-time concern… I went to medical school in Philadelphia and I saw women who’d had coat-hanger events. They’re really traumatic events that happen, when they were younger, before Roe v. Wade. And many of them were harmed for life. Emotionally, there’s scarring anyway.
Barnette has dismissed Trump’s endorsement of Oz, saying Trump’s Make America Great slogan, or MAGA, “does not belong to President Trump. MAGA, although he coined the word, MAGA actually belongs to the people.”
I’m the byproduct of rape. My mother was eleven when I was conceived.
In the world the Left desires, I would never have been born.
We need leaders with a steady hand to direct our nation through these difficult discussions.
Help me by sharing my story:https://t.co/JNGw8gNts0 pic.twitter.com/lqzufvxzQR
— Kathy Barnette (@Kathy4Truth) May 3, 2022
Here's Mehmet Oz just 3 years ago saying he was "really worried" about abortion rights in Roe v Wade being taken away. #PAsen pic.twitter.com/tIY6oiLptv
— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) May 3, 2022
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It’s unclear whether the endorsements and advertising will be enough to carry Barnette to the top of the field in the contentious Pennsylvania primary.
The Club for Growth, for instance, unleashed millions of dollars in advertising against Trump-backed JD Vance in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary earlier this month only for the “Hillbilly Elegy” author to win the race by an eight-point margin.
A Fox News poll released Monday, however, suggested a tight race in Pennsylvania’s Senate election.
The poll found 22% of GOP primary voters supported Oz with former hedge fund CEO David McCormick and Barnette bunched together at 20% and 19%. About one-fifth of voters, or 18%, said they were undecided.
Plus, Barnette has some baggage of her own.
She began her public service career with a stint in the Army National Guard during the 1990s. In recent years, she has become a speaker for pro-life causes, penned a memoir about being Black and conservative, ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in a Democratic-leaning district in suburban Philadelphia and gained a platform as a guest on conservative talk shows.
She has produced documentation of her service in the military, but she’s invited questions about her expertise in this field.
On her website, she claims to have served in the “Armed Forces Reserves,” a branch that doesn’t seem to exist. She also touts her acceptance in to Officer Candidacy School but doesn’t say whether she actually attended.
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Barnette also remains untested in politics. Her only other run for elected office was a longshot, uncompetitive campaign. She ran for U.S. House in 2020 near Philadelphia, and she lost by 19 points.
Until recently, this year’s Senate race has been primarily an expensive duel between Oz and the hedge fund CEO David McCormick. Both candidates and the super PACs that support them have reported spending more than $50 million and have blanketed Pennsylvania’s airwaves with TV ads.
Trump attacked McCormick at a Friday rally for Oz, calling McCormick the “candidate of special interests and globalists and the Washington establishment.”
Trump did not mention Barnette.
Oz and McCormick have also largely stayed quiet in public about Barnette, who has raised and spent only a fraction of their money.
The other Republicans haven’t exposed any of Barnette’s latent weaknesses, and so the Democrats may tear into her during the general election.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.