Pennsylvania Becomes the Land of Oz
Pennsylvania Republicans have rallied behind a celebrity former TV host and political neophyte, choosing a charismatic convert to conservatism over a rival who espoused a purer form of the party’s modern doctrine.
The above sentence could have been written in 2016, when Donald Trump defeated Senator Ted Cruz in Pennsylvania’s presidential primary on his way to receiving the GOP nomination. But tonight it’s a description of Mehmet Oz, America’s favorite living-room M.D., who has finally won the Keystone State’s Republican nomination for Senate with help from the former president. Oz narrowly topped the financier David McCormick after McCormick unexpectedly conceded in the middle of a statewide recount.
Oz now faces John Fetterman, the progressive lieutenant governor who Representative Conor Lamb for the Democratic nomination despite four days before the May 17 primary. Trump was two-for-two in his Republican endorsements in Pennsylvania, as arch-conservative State Senator Doug Mastriano easily secured the GOP nomination for governor. Oz’s victory in one of the nation’s most expensive Senate primaries was much tighter—so tight, in fact, that it took two and a half weeks for the race to be decided.
