WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Donald Trump in 2016 was in Pennsylvania over the weekend stumping for his party’s nominee for Senate, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano, the GOP’s nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, It was Mr. Trump’s first rally since the FBI’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago club, and he spent part of the evening railing against it.
He called it “one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history” and “a travesty of justice.”
“They’re trying to silence me and more importantly they’re trying to silence you. But we will not be silenced, right?” Trump said.
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Trump’s endorsed picks won many Republican primaries this summer. In addition to Oz, among the others are author JD Vance in Ohio, venture capitalist Blake Masters in Arizona and former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia.
“Republicans have now nominated a number of candidates who’ve never run for office before for very high-profile Senate races,” said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres. While he isn’t writing his party’s chances off just yet, he said, “It’s a much more difficult endeavor than a candidate who had won several difficult political races before.”
The stakes are particularly high for Trump as he lays the groundwork for an expected 2024 presidential run amid a series of escalating legal challenges.
Trump repeatedly attacked Biden — saying at one point “above all this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism” of Biden and Democrats — and gave a brief spotlight to Oz and Mastriano.
Mastriano, he noted, had fought with him from the beginning to try to help Trump fight for voter integrity, saying Mastriano fought “like very few people fought.”
Oz, Trump said, “is going to work and fight for Pennsylvania,” while he attacked Fetterman and the Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, as extreme on issues like crime and abortion. In particular, the former president went after Fetterman’s irreverent dressing habits — shorts and hoodies — saying that “I don’t like those dirty sweat suits, they’re disgusting.”
“Fetterman may dress like a teenager getting high in his parents’ basement, but he’s a raging lunatic hell-bent on springing hardened criminals out of jail in the middle of the worst crime wave in Pennsylvania history,” Trump said.
Republicans have targeted Fetterman for backing proposals to release more geriatric or rehabilitated inmates from prisons and provide flexibility in certain mandatory-sentencing laws.
While Republicans were once seen as having a good chance of gaining control of both chambers of Congress in November, benefitting from soaring inflation, high gas prices and Biden’s slumping approval ratings, Republicans have found themselves on defense since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision protecting abortion.
In Pennsylvania, Republicans are hoping Oz’s shortcomings as a candidate will be overshadowed by concerns about Fetterman, who suffered a stroke just days before the primary and has been sidelined for much of the summer.
Republicans acknowledge that Oz struggles to come off as authentic and was slow to punch back as Fetterman spent the summer trolling him on social media and portraying him as an ultrawealthy, out-of-touch carpetbagger from New Jersey.
While Fetterman leads Oz in polls and fundraising, Republicans say they expect the money gap to narrow and are pleased to see Oz within striking distance after getting hammered by $20 million in negative advertising during the primaries.
Oz has won over some once-skeptical voters, like Glen Rubendall, who didn’t vote for the TV doctor in his seven-way primary — a victory so narrow it went to a statewide recount — but said he’s come around and has a “pro-Oz view now.”
Traci Martin, a registered independent, also plans to vote for Oz because she opposes abortion, despite ads that aired during the primary featuring past Oz statements that seemed supportive of abortion rights.
“I hope he is pro-life,” Martin said, “but the sad part is we live in an age when we see politicians say one thing and do another.”
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