Top Pennsylvania Senate contenders David McCormick and Mehmet Oz are casting aspersions on each other’s loyalty to Donald Trump in the struggle to win personal favor with the former president and secure his endorsement.
Both Republicans are friendly with Trump and on roughly equal footing ideologically, waging maiden campaigns that have been buoyed, and burdened, by a similar share of political strengths and liabilities. The unfolding result has been an intensely personal competition for Trump’s seal of approval between McCormick and Oz, who are trading barbs and claiming the former president has fresh concerns about the other’s candidacy because of who they associate with or comments they uttered in the past.
Republican operatives who back McCormick and talk with Trump regularly say the former president is “annoyed” Oz tapped Jon Lerner as a campaign consultant. Lerner advises former Ambassador Nikki Haley and many other Republicans and has been accused by GOP operatives in Trump’s inner circle of being disloyal to the former president. Pro-McCormick Republicans are also attempting to use against Oz a perfunctory meeting that he held with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. A knowledgeable source said McCormick requested a similar meeting.
The Oz campaign is simultaneously highlighting McCormick’s public remarks from early last year, complimenting President Joe Biden’s inclusive “tone” and criticizing Trump’s “divisiveness.” Oz partisans also point out that McCormick in a recent radio interview initially sidestepped whether he would have voted to convict Trump at trial in the Senate on impeachment charges that he fomented the ransacking of the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year before finally saying “no.”
The implication from both McCormick and Oz: My opponent is a faux Trump supporter. The line of attack makes strategic sense. The former president is often more swayed by perceptions of personal loyalty than whether a Republican candidate is sufficiently supportive of his “America first” agenda. That extends beyond the candidates and includes the strategists they surround themselves with.
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However, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich suggested the former president might allow Oz some latitude on this front — or at the very least that he is choosing to keep any concerns private, telling the Washington Examiner, “What he does with his campaign is up to him.”
Asked for comment, McCormick campaign spokeswoman Jess Szymanski said in an email exchange that “Dave is the only true, ‘America First’ candidate that, if elected, will work every day to restore the pro-growth policies implemented by President Trump.” A super PAC supporting McCormick previously released a video charging that Oz is a RINO (Republican in Name Only).
The Oz campaign declined to comment for this story.
The Republican primary to anoint a standard-bearer to succeed retiring Sen. Pat Toomey remains in flux, as does Trump’s endorsement — or the prospect of him granting one, period. The former president initially backed Sean Parnell, who ran for Congress in 2020 and emerged as the favorite of both the establishment populist wings of the party. But Parnell exited the race just before Thanksgiving due to family issues, leaving the contest unstable and Trump’s endorsement uncertain.
With Parnell out and the remaining Republican candidates, Kathy Barnette, Jeff Bartos, and Carla Sands, underwhelming GOP primary voters, Oz and McCormick filled the void and have become the focal point of the nominating contest.
Oz, a surgeon and for years host of the nationally syndicated Dr. Oz television show, began the race with virtually 100% name identification and deep pockets from which he vowed to use to spend whatever was necessary to secure the nomination and get elected in November. Oz’s vulnerabilities? He was a longtime resident of New Jersey and only moved to Pennsylvania upon entering the Senate race and has not always towed the conservative line.
McCormick is a military veteran and Pittsburgh native who also is promising to invest whatever is necessary from his personal fortune to win the primary and the general election. McCormick’s vulnerabilities? The hedge fund he worked for as CEO before entering the race is heavily invested in China, a business strategy he was responsible for prosecuting. He only recently moved back to Pennsylvania and has been awkward and stiff on the stump so far.
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“Most of the attention has been on the millions of dollars spent on TV ads by Dr. Oz and hedge fund executive David McCormick and their supporting PACs,” said Jeffrey Brauer, a political science professor at Keystone College in northeastern Pennsylvania. “It seems to be a contest of who is more conservative and more aligned with former President Trump and his America First assertions. Both have the carpetbagger problem.”
Meanwhile, Republican operatives and media figures with whom Trump speaks regularly are divided on the two leading candidates. That could complicate any move he makes in the Republican primary ahead of voting in mid-May, as the former president often seeks the counsel of others in his orbit before deciding on an endorsement.
