The super PAC supporting Mehmet Oz, the popular television personality known as “Dr. Oz,” is launching an offensive against David McCormick as the competition intensifies between Pennsylvania’s top Republican Senate contenders.
American Leadership Action on Wednesday unveiled a website and posted a new digital advertisement criticizing McCormick’s ties to China, with both timed to coincide with the former hedge fund CEO’s expected entry into the race for the Republican Senate nomination. The super PAC, stood up specifically to bolster Oz’s 2022 Senate campaign, plans to air television ads statewide beginning Thursday that also will paint McCormick as a ruthless businessman who sold out Pennsylvania to China.
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“Meet Wall Street CEO David McCormick,” American Leadership Action’s website reads across the top. “He’s a friend of China and outsourced Pittsburgh jobs.”
The super PAC first shared its messaging and initial advertising strategy with the Washington Examiner.
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McCormick, 56, was until last month the CEO of Bridgewater Associates, a large hedge fund with significant investments in China. Oz’s supporters did not wait for McCormick to jump into GOP Senate primary to accuse him of favoring Beijing over Pennsylvania — those attacks started in early December before he had resigned from the investment firm he joined in 2009 and helped lead since 2017.
With McCormick on the verge of becoming a declared candidate, American Leadership Action was moving to use his business career against him.
“David McCormick, he’s a friend — of China, with a long record of selling us out,” the voice-over says as the super PAC’s digital ad opens. “McCormick went to China and called them an ally.”
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McCormick, a first-time candidate for office, is a military veteran, a veteran of the George W. Bush administration, and on good terms with former President Donald Trump. Personally wealthy, McCormick is expected to bankroll his Senate bid and spend whatever is required to fund a competitive campaign. Once McCormick’s campaign is up and running, it is likely to focus on Oz’s residency.
Oz, 61, has spent the last several years living in New Jersey and moved to Pennsylvania recently to run for Senate. McCormick is a Pittsburgh native. Indeed, McCormick’s political team began highlighting this and other issues, subtly, around the time Oz entered the Senate race Nov. 30. Like McCormick, Oz is friendly with Trump.
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The former president had endorsed Sean Parnell for Senate in Pennsylvania, but the Republican dropped out just before Thanksgiving to deal with family problems.
Party insiders expect the mid-May primary to come down to Oz and McCormick although there are at least three other Republicans in the running.
