Media mogul Oprah Winfrey endorsed Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman over GOP challenger Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor-turned-candidate whose television career she helped launch.
Oz appeared regularly on Winfrey’s popular talk show before he headlined The Dr. Oz Show, a program that focused on health and wellness and was co-produced by Winfrey’s Harpo Productions.
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Fetterman’s camp had been trying to score a Winfrey endorsement for months, knowing the weight it would carry. The efforts paid off Thursday when the queen of talk announced at a virtual get-out-the-vote event that she is supporting Fetterman in the high-stakes Senate race that could determine which political party controls the upper chamber of Congress.
“I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania and of course — but I will tell you all this, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said.
Neil Makhija, executive director of Indian American Impact, told Politico that Fetterman doesn’t typically lobby for high-profile endorsements but that “if there was one that is really meaningful, for many reasons, it’s Oprah.”
Oz has gained on Fetterman in the polls, leaning in on messages about crime and the economy. He also made up ground following a shaky debate performance last month for the Democratic candidate, who is still recovering from a stroke.
Fetterman said he was grateful for Winfrey’s support, calling her a “leader” who is “fighting for our democracy, passing commonsense gun reform, and ensuring racial justice.”
Winfrey’s relative silence on Oz, a Turkish American heart surgeon, during the primaries also spoke volumes.
“We know that she’s diffusive in her praise of people that she adores and that she respects and that she loves,” Leah Wright Rigueur, a historian at Johns Hopkins University and Oprahdemics podcast co-host, said in July. “One only has to look at Barack Obama, but she has been very, very quiet about Dr. Oz beyond saying, ‘Well, this is a free country, freedom of speech, and people have the right to run for office if they want to run for office.’ Given the way that Oprah operates and the way that she engages, if she supported Dr. Oz, I would have expected a much larger statement, a very direct endorsement of his candidacy. We have not seen that, and I don’t think we will see that.”
Though Oz may not have gotten Winfrey’s stamp of approval, he did score an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.
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“This is all about winning elections in order to stop the Radical Left maniacs from destroying our country,” Trump said in a statement. “I’ve known Dr. Oz for many years, as have many others, even if only through his very successful television show. He has lived with us through the screen and has always been popular, respected, and smart.”
Trump added that Oz told him he was “in extraordinary health, which made me like him even more (although he also said I should lose a couple of pounds!).”
