DV Journal

With fewer than 1,000 votes separating them, the close primary election between Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick for the open U.S. Senate seat is going into a recount.

Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman announced the recount Wednesday afternoon. It was triggered by the 0.5 percent margin between the two candidates’ vote totals and must be completed by June 7.

Unofficial returns showed Oz with 419,365 votes or 31.21 percent and McCormick at 418,463 or 31.14 percent.

McCormick also filed a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to permit mail-in ballots without a date written on them by the voter to be counted. Chapman told county election offices to set those ballots aside to await the court’s decision.

But McCormick’s move garnered swift pushback from state and national Republican Party officials.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, said via Twitter: “Both Republican candidates in Pennsylvania would be fantastic senators. The RNC is committed to election integrity and election laws must be followed. We’re intervening in a Pennsylvania legal battle alongside the @PAGOP to ensure just that.”

RNC Chief Counsel Matt Raymer said, “The RNC is intervening in this lawsuit alongside the Pennsylvania GOP because election laws are meant to be followed, and changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections. Either of Pennsylvania’s leading Republican Senate candidates would represent the Keystone State better than a Democrat, but Pennsylvania law is clear that undated absentee ballots may not be counted. This is another example of the RNC’s ironclad commitment to ensuring that the highest standards of transparency and security are upheld throughout the election process.”

And conservative radio talk host Dom Giordano told the Delaware Valley Journal podcast he thinks McCormick’s decision to go to court is a mistake. He believes McCormick should “take one for the team” and emerge as the GOP’s nominee to take on state Sen. Bob Casey (D) in 2024.

“I like McCormick, and to spend all that money and lose by so few votes — I get it. If your attorney says there’s another avenue, you do it,” Giordano said. “Once it becomes apparent where we are, he [McCormick] should be aware that Casey is viewed as very vulnerable, and he’d have the entire GOP behind him.”

As of Wednesday night, however, the McCormick campaign was pressing ahead. Spokesperson Jess Szymanski said the litigation the campaign filed was to require counties to adhere to a recent ruling by the “Republican-leaning Third Circuit Court to count Republican ballots signed by a voter, received and timestamped by 8 p.m. on Election Day. These ‘undated’ ballots are in fact dated because they’re timestamped and proven to have arrived on time,” she said.

“Once we have counted all Republican votes received on time, we will unite behind a strong GOP nominee to defeat socialist John Fetterman in the fall. All Republicans should be focused on that goal.”

The McCormick campaign believes the state Supreme Court will decide whether to hear its appeal by the close of business Thursday, Szymanski said.

Dave McCormick said via Twitter, “We are proud our campaign received nearly 418,000 votes, won 37 of 67 counties, and contributed to a historic turnout with a razor-thin difference between myself and Mehmet Oz. This narrow difference triggers an automatic recount and we look forward to a swift resolution so our party can unite to defeat socialist John Fetterman in the fall.”

Lawrence Tabas, chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party says he believes either Republican will defeat Fetterman in the general election.

“We look forward to working with whoever is the nominee, once the primary results are certified,” Tabas said.

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Republican Senate candidate David McCormick has filed a petition in Commonwealth Court to make sure that all undated ballots received were on time are counted in counties that are, so far, refusing to count them. It’s just the latest drama in a primary season featuring nonstop negative RINO ads and one of the Democratic candidates hospitalized shortly before Election Day.

A May 20 ruling by a federal appeals court that permitted mail-in ballots in Lehigh County to be counted despite not having the required date on the exterior of the ballot opened the door for McCormick’s petition.

McCormick, a hedge fund CEO, and celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz are in a statistical tie in the Republican primary to be the party’s nominee to run against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the fall, and their contest is headed toward a recount.

“Both the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit have held that mail-in ballots should not be disqualified simply because the voters failed to handwrite a date on the exterior mailing envelope of their ballots,” said McCormick’s chief legal counsel Chuck Cooper. “Because all ballots are time-stamped by the County Boards of Elections on receipt, a voter’s handwritten date is meaningless. All timely ballots of qualified Republican voters should be counted.”

Jess Szymanski, a spokeswoman for the McCormick campaign, added, “Every Republican primary vote should be counted, including the votes of Pennsylvania’s active-duty military members who risk their lives to defend our constitutional right to vote. When every Republican vote is counted, Dave looks forward to uniting the party and defeating socialist John Fetterman in the fall.”

Previously, Oz filed a challenge to Philadelphia Republican voters’ provisional ballots being counted.

“The Board’s only basis for disenfranchising these voters is a technical error that is immaterial under both state and federal law. A plurality of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has already held that the Commonwealth’s Election Code—which “must be liberally construed so as not to deprive . . . the voters of their right to elect a candidate of their choice”—”does not require boards of elections to disqualify mail-in or absentee ballots submitted by qualified electors who signed the declaration on their ballot’s outer envelope but did not handwrite . . . [the] date, where no fraud or irregularity has been alleged,” the suit said.

“By refusing to count absentee and mail-in ballots based solely on the lack of a handwritten date in the declaration section of the exterior mailing envelope, the Boards are depriving likely thousands of voters of the right to vote that (the law) explicitly preserved,” the suit stated. “These ballots were indisputably returned on time. Whether or not a voter remembered to write a date on the mailing envelope is entirely immaterial to whether that voter’ “is qualified under State law to vote’… Just as there is no basis on this record [for the Boards] to refuse to count undated ballots.”

Meanwhile, Casey Contres, Oz’s campaign manager, responded with a tweet, saying that while McCormick had a been a “formidable opponent,” he was going to come up short and was “following the Democrats’ playbook” by filing the suit, which “could have long-term harmful consequences” to elections in Pennsylvania.

But if Oz is the nominee, he would “appreciate” McCormick’s support in defeating “extreme liberal socialist” Fetterman.

In addition to the counties, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman, who oversees elections, was also named a defendant in the suit.

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Pennslyvania’s hotly-contested U.S. Senate race has gotten notice from pundits around the country, but the final decision will be up to voters in places like the Delaware Valley.

The Senate race in particular has gained national attention because the body is now divided 50/50 for each party, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie votes for Democrats.

In the Republican Senate race, which for months appeared to be a duel between Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick, a hedge fund CEO, a third candidate broke through into striking distance of winning: Kathy Barnette, an author and conservative commentator.

Dr. Mehmet Oz

The Emerson College poll released over the weekend, showed Oz at 28 percent support, followed by Barnette with 24 percent, and McCormick with 21 percent. However, 15 percent were undecided. Those voters were asked who they are leaning towards. With their support allocated, Oz jumped to 32 percent, followed by Barnette with 27 percent and McCormick with 26 percent. Since last month’s Pennsylvania GOP poll, Oz gained 10 points, Barnette has gained 12 points and McCormick has lost two points.

Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent for the National Review told the Delaware Valley Journal podcast that it may have been Trump’s endorsement of Oz that opened the door for Barnette to surge.

“A lot of Trump fans are like ‘Er, no,’” said Geraghty. The “Mehmet Oz endorsement is a bridge too far for Trump’s base…The Trump endorsement clearly has a limit to it.”

However, now that Barnette is gaining traction, she’s also become a target. Oz and McCormick have been duking it out with attack ads on the airwaves for months.

“The knives are out,” she told Delaware Valley Journal in a recent interview. “They are scared and mad.” Oz and McCormick have spent many millions more on their campaigns than her paltry $1.7 million. Although she recently attracted a deep-pocketed PAC, the Club for Growth, that is also running ads on her behalf.

Meanwhile,  the other candidates are also campaigning nonstop across the state.

“Dr. Oz is in a position to win because he’s the only conservative outsider in this race,” said Casey Contres, campaign manager. “President Trump endorsed Dr. Oz because he knows that Pennsylvanians want someone that will fight back at the woke mob and put forth solutions that will get the government out of their way.”

Rep. Craig Williams and Dave McCormick, Republican Senate candidate.

McCormick said, “I’m a battle-tested conservative, Army veteran, successful businessman, and Pennsylvania job creator who knows what it takes to revive our economy, restore our conservative values, secure our border, and solve the problems facing Pennsylvanians.”

He called his opponents “unqualified and concerning.”

Others running on the Republican side include Montgomery County developer Jeff Bartos, former ambassador Carla Sands, and Sean Gale and George Bochetto, both lawyers—all poll at single digits.

The Democrat candidates have also seen some drama also in recent days, but for a different reason. Frontrunner Lt. Gov. John Fetterman suffered a stroke but he is expected to be recover. Also, running for Senate are Congressman Conor Lamb and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.

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Kathy Barnette is in the fight for her political life. And she knows it.

“The knives are out,” she told Delaware Valley Journal Friday. “They are scared and mad.”

Since advancing into a three-way tie in the GOP’s U.S. Senate primary, the Huntington Valley resident has been the target of a barrage of negative attacks and commentary. An article in the Washington Examiner that asked who Barnette was unleashed a floodgate of what her GOP critics call “vetting.”

In response, Barnette took to local radio to answer questions about her hometown in Alabama, her military experience, and her previous employment. She even posted pictures of her military discharge papers on Twitter.

An author and conservative commentator, Barnette is active in the pro-life movement and homeschooled her two children.

She has also made controversial statements in the past that some Republicans fear could cost the party a winnable Senate seat in November’s general election. They point to articles she wrote attacking what she called “the homosexual AGENDA,” and tweets many consider Islamophobic — including calls to ban Islam from the United States and suggesting that former President Barack Obama was a Muslim.

In response, Barnette pointed out the Muslim-related tweets were from 2015 or 2016, at a time when Obama allowed large numbers of Syrian refugees into the country.  She said the FBI director acknowledged there was no way to determine the background or views of those refugees.

“I am not against Muslims or any individual,” she said.  “I am against radical Islamic terrorism. Clearly, not all Muslims are radical.”

Her critics took short tweets where “clearly not all the thoughts are complete sentences, taking half of what is being written and adding a narrative,” said Barnette.

As for tweets that seemed homophobic or against transsexuals, Barnette said those were also not “whole thoughts.” However, she said, she is against teaching young children in kindergarten through third grade about sexual matters and she opposes girls competing in sports against biological males.

“They are just taking a portion of what I said,” Barnette added. “I would never be cruel to anyone.”

She is particularly incensed that Fox radio and television host Sean Hannity has joined the attacks. He interviewed her either on radio or television about seven times, she said, and never asked her about her military record. But now that Hannity is supporting Dr. Mehmet Oz, he is attacking her, she said.

“His horse in the race is not going to win, so he’s going after me,” Barnette said.

Hannity could not immediately be reached for comment.

Barnette also pushed back on heavily-edited videos claiming to show she is a racist who does not like White people and that she supports the Black Lives Matter organization. She says the opposite is true.

“I am hiding nothing,” said Barnette, who noted she has been campaigning for 13 months for the nomination to the Senate and during that time she was largely ignored by much of the media. She also ran for Congress in 2020.

What changed is that she is now in a statistical dead heat with Oz and Dave McCormick, a hedge fund CEO. Both men have spent millions on the race, and their Super PACs have spent even more running attack ads, according to Barnette.

“They are scared and mad,” said Barnette. “They spent over $60 million.” Oz and McCormick, who Barnette refers to as “carpetbaggers” who moved to Pennsylvania from other states to run for office, participated in very few debates or forums while she has traveled the state attending all of them.

Barnette, who is running as an outspoken Trump supporter, was hit with one of the former president’s now-infamous anti-endorsements on Thursday. “Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the General Election against the Radical Left Democrats.”

“She has many things in her past, which have not been properly explained or vetted, but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party—and I will be behind her all the way,” Trump said.

“I don’t expect (Trump) to retract his endorsement of Oz,” said Barnette. And her response to Trump’s statement?

“I look forward to working with the president come Wednesday,” she said.

And Barnette has since picked up the endorsements of the Club for Growth and the Susan B. Anthony List, two major players in Republican politics.

As for Oz and McCormick, “I chose to focus on Pennsylvania and Pennsylvanians and they chose to focus on each other,” she said.

“This is politics,” said Barnette about the last-minute attacks against her. “This is the reason why good people don’t go into politics. Look at what they’re doing.”

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With Kathy Barnette now in second place in two recent polls of Pennsylvania Republican voters for the U.S. Senate race, would her strict, no exceptions stand on abortion be a hindrance in the general election?

Both Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is in the lead, and Dave McCormick, the hedge fund CEO who is in third place, are also pro-life but would make an exception for the life of the mother.

And at the other end of the spectrum, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is the likely Democratic nominee, wants to guarantee a woman’s right to choose all the way through the ninth month of pregnancy. Indeed, Fetterman has called the right to an abortion “sacred” and would do away with the Senate filibuster to pass a pro-abortion law.

“Let’s be clear: The right to an abortion is sacred,” Fetterman tweeted. “Democrats have to act quickly – get rid of the filibuster to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act + finally codify Roe into law. We cannot afford to wait.”

Abortion has dominated the headlines lately because of a leaked draft of a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision that would likely overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that found women had a right to an abortion. If the high court does reverse Roe, it would throw the issue back to the state legislatures to decide.

Temple University Political Science Department Chair Robin Kolodny said that the polls’ margin of error shows a “statistical dead heat” between Barnette, Oz, and McCormick.

A Real Clear Politics has Oz at 25, Barnette at 23, and McCormick at 22. A Trafalgar Group poll shows Oz at 24.5, Barnette at 23.2, and McCormick at 21.6.

“As with so much in elections, the winner will be the one who mobilizes best over the next week. This is generally a lot harder in midterm years,” said Kolodny.

“However, since she has been campaigning with (gubernatorial candidate) Doug Mastriano and his lead is much more commanding, that could help her,” said Kolodny. “I don’t think her stance on abortion is going to be that much different from the Republican nominee’s position, so I don’t think this would be a particular concern in the fall campaign should she get the nomination. Whatever candidate gets the nomination should expect everything in their record to be fair game. We know less about Barnette than the other two front runners, so who knows?”

“If Barnette was to win the nomination her position on abortion would be a drag on her chances,” said Christopher Borick, professor of political science and director of Muhlenberg College’s Institute of Public Opinion. “In terms of public opinion, her abortion stance is not shared by a large majority of voters in Pennsylvania. The issue could tip a portion of swing voters away from her, and bring some Democratic-leaning voters to the polls who otherwise may not be energized in this cycle.”

Barnette’s life story is the basis of her pro-life beliefs.

Her mother was 11 years old when she was raped leading to Barnette’s birth.

“I’m the byproduct of rape,” Barnette tweeted. “My mother was 11 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.”

And this, Pennsylvania political insiders tell DVJournal, is the wildcard. “How does Fetterman attack her on abortion when she has a personal story like that,” one political operative who declined to speak on the record said. “She’s a Black woman who has the abortion issue as part of her biography. Fetterman’s a big, bald White guy who’s already got an issue with Black voters. How does he handle this in a debate without looking bad?”

In 2013, Fetterman chased a Black jogger and pulled a shotgun, mistakenly believing the man had been involved in a shooting.

Tom Stevens, president of the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia, also believes her views will help Barnette in the general election.

Barnette, an author and Fox News commentator, has talked extensively about her life from a childhood of poverty, serving 10 years in the Army Reserve, completing college, and then working in finance.

A Huntingdon Valley resident, she is married with two children. In 2020, Barnette ran for Congress against incumbent Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Montgomery).

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Republican state Rep. Craig Williams teamed up with U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick to knock on doors Saturday in the Garnet Valley neighborhood of Chadds Ford.

Williams said he enjoys meeting his constituents in person and typically knocks on more than 2,000 doors during his campaigns.

“My favorite part (of campaigning) is knocking on doors,” said Williams.

McCormick also enjoys talking to potential voters and has made in-person campaigning, whether knocking on doors or pressing the flesh in diners and American Legion halls, a trademark of his campaign.

Rep. Williams and Dave McCormick, along with volunteers pose with a Harley Davidson motorcycle. A TV commercial shows McCormick riding his Harley Davidson Fat Boy. And when the weather is nice, he often rides it around Pittsburgh.

“I love it, I mean, I love it,” said McCormick. “If you knock on 10 doors and talk to one or two people, you get the connection.”

McCormick likes to hear voters’ opinions, telling him what they like or hate.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “I love it. I love being with (Williams). He’s a great guy. This is a great part of Pennsylvania that I need to spend more time in. I’m really devoted to spending time here in the southeast. It makes sure my message is out there.”

And it was a family affair, with McCormick’s wife, Dina Powell McCormick, who was a deputy national security advisor to former President Donald Trump, accompanying him and Williams’ 12-year-old son, Cole, also along, as well as campaign volunteers and staff.

McCormick, who is vying for the lead in the Republican Senate primary race with television celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz and commentator Kathy Barnette, also has ads blanketing television screens, either from his campaign or a Super PAC that supports him. A former hedge fund CEO, he comes across as a down-to-earth, regular guy.

“I hope to get your vote,” he says to homeowners after a brief exchange and introduction from Williams, who has an app that tells him which houses belong to registered Republicans. Only Republicans or Democrats can vote for their respective candidates in the May 17 primary.

“We’re still really undecided,” homeowner George Kent, told the Delaware Valley Journal after shaking hands with Williams and McCormick and listening to their pitches.

Dina Powell McCormick, Cole Williams, Rep. Craig Williams and Dave McCormick.

His wife, Debbi Kent, said, “He keeps saying, ‘the stakes are high,’ and we agree. We want the best person in the Senate, and I was very unhappy (with Sen. Pat Toomey). I want to learn more.”

She was “surprised but appreciative” that McCormick came to her door. “That shows he’s serious and wants to meet the people.”

Another resident, Joe Dailey, said that he was from Bloomsburg but did not know McCormick, who went to high school there when his dad was president of Bloomsburg University and chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.  The family also owns a Christmas tree farm nearby that has been featured in McCormick’s TV commercials.

McCormick, 56, graduated from West Point, where he was on the wrestling team and served in the first Gulf War with the 82nd Airborne. He also served in several positions in the George W. Bush administration, including as Under Secretary of the Treasury, and he holds a Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton. In the private sector, McCormick was CEO of a software company in Pittsburgh and most recently held the CEO post at Bridgewater Associates.

During a talk at a VFW Post in Bensalem, McCormick said the Biden administration’s botched handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal led to his decision to run for the Senate.

“I’ve seen his ads,” said Dailey. “I’m a big fan of his. I like what he has to say. And Craig (Williams) is the best guy we’ve ever had here. Good luck to you guys. I will vote for you.”

Williams (R-Chadds Ford) also served in the military. He spent three decades in the Marines, retiring as a colonel.  The two candidates bantered about which of their rival branches of the service was best as they walked the neighborhood.

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The ongoing slugfest between TV celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz and hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick dominated the Republican Senate debate held Monday evening.

Former Ambassador Carla Sands also skirmished with conservative activist Kathy Barnette, feuding over which candidate is the most MAGA. And former Lt. Gov. candidate Jeff Bartos did his best to portray the two frontrunners, McCormick and Oz, as “political tourists,” who came to Pennsylvania to run for office.

With a 50-50 U.S. Senate in the balance, Pennsylvania’s Senate race has gained national attention.

The candidates agreed on most of the larger issues, such as all claiming to be pro-life, wanting lower taxes and fewer regulations, and vowing to unleash America’s energy dominance. Because their positions are so similar, voters may choose based on personal style and their perceived ability to defeat the Democratic nominee — likely to be Lt. Gov. John Fetterman — in November.

Oz repeatedly touted his endorsement from former President Donald Trump as he parried McCormick’s barbs, and he returned Trump’s endorsement with his loyalty. For example, while some Republicans are concerned that Trump’s obsession with re-litigating the 2020 election will hurt the party this fall, Oz doubled down. “I have discussed it with President Trump and we cannot move on” from the 2020 election issue, he said.

Bartos and Barnette both bashed McCormick and Oz as late-comers who moved to the state to run for the open Senate seat.

“When these carpetbaggers lose, you will never see them again,” said Barnette. “And if they should win, you will never see them again.” Voters “want someone who doesn’t just parachute into our state.”

McCormick said he grew up in Bloomsburg, where his family ran a Christmas tree farm that he still owns, then went to West Point and served in the Gulf War. Oz pointed to his University of Pennsylvania education and said he grew up near Kennett Square, albeit in Delaware.

Bartos said he is a “proud Pennsylvanian” who was raised in Berks County. He promised to fight for Pennsylvanians and pointed out that he started a nonprofit group to keep small businesses afloat during the COVID pandemic.

Sands, who grew up in Camp Hill and spent much of her adult life in Atlanta and California, said she spent about half her life here working as a “third-generation chiropractic doctor with my father.” She served as the ambassador to Denmark for the Trump administration and now runs an investment business founded by her late husband.

The candidates also criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the economy and promised to do better if voters sent them to Washington.

“Democrats have decided to weaponize climate change and create a war against energy,” said Barnette.

“I’m running to save Main Street Pennsylvania,” said Bartos. “The number one way to do it is to unleash Pennsylvania’s energy industry. We are sitting on two Saudi Arabia’s worth of natural gas…You cannot save Main Street Pennsylvania if you can’t find Main Street Pennsylvania.”

Sands said Pennsylvania needs an “Operation Warp Speed” for energy.

McCormick said he created 600 jobs at his company in Pittsburgh and agreed with the others that the state needs its energy jobs unleashed. He noted Oz called for a ban on fracking in an article on Oct. 13, 2014.

“Dishonest Dave is at it again,” Oz said. “I know exactly how to manage our energy issues…As a professor, scientist, and someone who understands a little about the actual energy infrastructure, there is no way the Green New Deal is going to provide us with what the Democrats promise. It’s a lie like so much about what they said about COVID.”

McCormick said Oz constantly repeats Trump’s endorsement because “he can’t run on his own record.”

“What’s true is that he’s flip-flopped on every major issue in this campaign,” said McCormick.

On Trump’s claims that he, and not Biden, actually won the 2020 election, Oz called the allegations “serious.”

“Under the cover of COVID, there’s been draconian changes to our voting laws by Democratic leadership, and they have blocked appropriate reviews of some of those decisions. We have to be serious about what happened in 2020, and we won’t be able to address that until we win the House and the Senate,” Oz said.

Bartos said, “Unfortunately, Joe Biden is the president. As a result of his lack of leadership, we have chaos in Russia, an illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, we have chaos in the Middle East, we have an ascendant Iran, an ascendant China, we have an economy in disarray, we have runaway inflation. And this is on the heels of every Democrat running. Every Democrat running this year is going to have to answer for the lockdowns, shutdowns, lives ripped apart. So the 2020 election was a catalyst for what we’re seeing now.”

Sands said documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie “2000 Mules” is about how the 2020 election was stolen and that Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said it was stolen by the directed funding from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“When you take the oath to protect this country, the thing you’re protecting is the right to vote,” said McCormick. “And we have a tragedy here that most Republican voters in Pennsylvania don’t believe in the integrity of the election.”

The reasons include mail-in voting, the lack of security for ballot boxes, oversight at the precincts, and money that’s come in from Zuckerberg.

“And we have the fact that the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed,” said McCormick. “We’ve got to fix this. And the most important thing (is) voter I.D. We’ve got to have voter I.D.”

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Carla Sands, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, came out swinging against her opponents during a podcast interview with the Delaware Valley Journal on Thursday.

Sands, former ambassador to Denmark under President Donald Trump, responded to questions about the former president’s endorsement of Dr. Mehmet Oz by attacking the ‘America First’ bona fides of her GOP primary opponents.

Oz “chose to serve Turkey first, not America first. Even though he says it, he actually chose as an American citizen to go fight for Turkey in the Turkish military, not the American military,” Sands said, a reference to Oz performing his required military service in Turkey to maintain his dual citizenship. (Oz was born in Ohio.)

And regarding another competitor with ties to Trump, hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick, she said he had “shipped jobs out of Pennsylvania offshore. And that’s what’s devastated Pennsylvania over the last 40 years. I would say he’s closer to Beijing than he is to D.C.”

McCormick “chose to invest not in America but in China. And you don’t make a lot of money in China without the support of the Communist Party because they control the economy in their country.”

In recent polls, both Oz and McCormick currently lead Sands, a Camp Hill native.

Oz has said that if elected, he will renounce his Turkish citizenship. Oz said he has kept his dual citizenship so he can travel to Turkey more easily to visit his widowed mother, who has Alzheimer’s. His parents, who were immigrants, retired to their home country.

“Dave has always fought to keep jobs in Pennsylvania and never outsourced any jobs. At FreeMarkets, Dave was a part of creating over 600 jobs in Pittsburgh, contributing to the economic revitalization of the Steel City,” Jess Szymanski, a McCormick campaign spokesperson said in response. And Sands’ allegations regarding China are not true, she said.

Sands also claimed those two candidates would vote like “squish” Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), while she would provide “America first” votes.

Asked about Trump’s recent endorsement of Oz, Sands said the former president “has not always been getting the best advice,” and that she is the one who can beat Democrat frontrunner Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who she said was a “strong candidate.”

“The Democrats love him, and they’ve become radical,” Sands said.

Asked about rising inflation, Sands noted it has hurt “working families and our seniors on fixed incomes are suffering across the commonwealth because the radical Biden administration has been passing these big, bad bills. They’re multi-trillion-dollar bills stuffed with the Green New Deal, socialist regulation, attempting to regulate our farmers, our energy sector, really, every single area of our lives. They want to set the thermostat in our homes. We have to say no. And I will stop the out-of-control spending in Washington. That’s the number one driver inflation started off as soon as (Biden) got into office with his radical policies. But the second, the kerosene on the fire of the inflation is his war, the Biden administration, and the left’s war on our domestic energy.”

Sands touted Pennsylvania’s energy resources and the need to extract the state’s natural gas and get it to market so that good-paying jobs will be available here and to stem the population drain that cost the commonwealth a congressional seat after the 2020 Census.

“I’ve called for an Operation Warp Speed for American and Pennsylvania energy that we harvest it,” said Sands. “We do it cleaner than anywhere else in the world, right here in America. And then we lay the pipes. But we’re going to need top cover from that…because we’re going have to unjam all the regulations, the bad regulations at the federal and state level. But we can do this.”

Reminded that some Delaware Valley residents have vehemently opposed new pipelines she said, “Here’s the beautiful thing about federal power. If we have an ‘America First’ president in the White House, and we have an emergency for our energy because we don’t want to import Russian, Venezuelan, or Iranian energy, which is what the radical Biden administration is literally proposing. We need to have it domestic it’s cleaner here. And it also is economic security, but national security because Putin showed us, energy’s not just a commodity, it’s a weapon. And we need this for our security and the security of our allies.”

Sands also said Trump would have won the 2020 election if not for the interference of American “oligarchs” like Mark Zuckerberg.

“I refer you to Sen. Rand Paul,” she said. The Republican senator from Kentucky said the 2020 election was stolen. “He said, we did a forensic analysis. And if Mark Zuckerberg and his family’s money that went into that nonprofit and funded how the election was held did not go into the election, Donald Trump would be president today. So the Zuck bucks stole the election.

“There were other things that went on. We know where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But Rand Paul, a sitting senator, said the election was stolen by the Zuck bucks,” said Sands.

Sands started her career in chiropractic medicine, like her father and grandfather. She married Fred Sands in 1999 and after he died, she became the first woman to serve as chair and CEO of Vintage Capital Group, her late husband’s company.

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On the latest edition of the Delaware Valley Journal podcast, U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Oz joins News Editor Linda Stein to talk about getting the backing of former President Donald Trump and what it means to his campaign. He also pushes back on attack ads from GOP primary opponent Dave McCormick and makes his case for the right way to handle gender fluidity/transgender issues with children.

And, Dr. Oz says, while he’s a supporter of medical marijuana, he’s never tried pot himself.

Honest.

Hosted by Michael Graham.

Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz announced Wednesday he will give up his Turkish citizenship if elected to the U.S. Senate.

Oz stepped into political quicksand this week when he said he would keep his dual citizenship as both Turkish and American if elected, even if that meant giving up access to classified briefings.

On Wednesday afternoon, Republican candidate Dave McCormick held a press call with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) calling out Oz on his position. Less than an hour later, the celebrity doctor reversed course.

“My dual citizenship has become a distraction in this campaign. I maintained it to care for my ailing mother, but after several weeks of discussions with my family, I’m committing that before I am sworn in as the next U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania I will only be a U.S. citizen,” Oz said.

“The bigoted attacks my opponent, Dave McCormick, has made against me as the child of immigrants is reminiscent of slurs made in the past about Catholics and Jews,” said Oz. “It is a sign of McCormick’s desperate campaign that he has resorted to this disgraceful tactic. It is completely disqualifying behavior for anyone aiming to serve in the United States Senate.”

During the Wednesday press call, Sullivan told reporters top-secret intelligence reports are vital to doing his job as a senator.

Sullivan, who is also a member of the Marine Corps Reserve, said he was “quite shocked” when he learned Oz had said he would keep his Turkish citizenship and do without the intelligence reports.

“So this is a huge part of the job. It’s actually a constitutional part of the job in terms of our focus in the Senate, national security issues, much more so than the House. And from my perspective…it’s just inconceivable that you would make a decision that somehow would limit your access to this kind of intelligence that you need to do the job. My view is you need full access to all the intel that the different intelligence agencies provide us senators, to do the job effectively.”

It is more important now than ever “given the Ukraine situation,” and that the senators have been given security briefing repeatedly in the past few weeks since Russia invaded that Eastern European country, he said. And senators are privy to the top-secret information whether they are on the Armed Services or Foreign Relations committees, or not.

Asked by the Delaware Valley Journal why Oz keeping his Turkish citizenship would make a difference given that Turkey is a NATO ally, Sullivan said it makes “a big difference.”

Even the other members of so-called Five Eyes-the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—do not see everything the senators are privy to, Sullivan noted.

“There’s a whole class of intel and it’s usually at the top-secret level that’s called “non-foreign” that “we don’t share with foreigners from any country, including Five Eyes countries,” said Sullivan.

Another reporter asked why Oz would have to renounce his dual citizenship to receive classified intelligence information. Sullivan said the issue has never been tested.

Meanwhile, McCormick responded to Oz’s remarks about him via Twitter, taunting Oz to give up his Turkish citizenship immediately: “Do it now. Voters can’t trust Mehmet Oz. He has lied about his position on abortion, the 2nd Amendment, immigration, masks, and Fauci to name a few. Renounce your Turkish citizenship now. We won’t be fooled again.”

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