The two main contenders for the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania took a short break from savaging each other this week to train their collective fire on an unexpected rival who is experiencing a surge in popularity in the eleventh hour of the high-profile contest.
In fact, on Wednesday afternoon, it seemed like anyone with a Fox News show or a follower count in the six-digits on MAGA Twitter is speaking with the same voice: if Kathy Barnette wins the primary Tuesday, she is going to lose the Senate seat to a Democrat.
But for Barnette—a previously little-known author whose only other political credit is a landslide congressional defeat in 2020—all the attacks just showed that leading candidates David McCormick and Mehmet Oz think of her as a threat.
“I think I see it as a badge of honor,” Barnette said. “They’re actually paying attention to me.”
McCormick and Trump-endorsed Oz weren’t the only ones startled by Barnette’s sudden rise.
Sean Hannity took time on his show to slam her attacks on Muslims, including her claim that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Newsmax’s Greg Kelly called her a “race card playing scammer.” Former Trump acting intelligence director Ric Grenell called her “unfit for office,” highlighting a 2015 tweet in which Barnette said “pedophilia is a cornerstone of Islam.” Pro-Trump accounts have circulated a misleadingly edited video meant to portray Barnette, who is Black, as a radical Black Lives Matter supporter.
Conservative media outlets have stirred up murky questions about her military service. Even Trump got in on the action on Thursday, putting out a vague press release claiming Barnette would lose a general election because of “many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted.”
Tuesday’s Republican primary was expected to come down to McCormick, a businessman, and Trump’s pick, Oz. But a pricey ad battle between the two leading candidates and a viral video about Barnette’s life story have created an opening for the little-known author and failed House candidate who now polls roughly equal to her rivals.
A Fox News poll conducted between May 3 and May 7 put Barnette at 19 percent, McCormick at 20 percent, and Oz at 22 percent—a three-way tie in the poll’s 3 percent margin of error.
It’s the second time in two election cycles Barnette has been on the ballot. In 2020, she lost a general election bid for a House seat by more than 20 points. That loss and her thin political experience appear to have convinced Republican operatives that she would struggle in the Senate primary. But her sudden rise has upended the GOP race, which for months has been a brutal one-on-one cage match between Oz and McCormick. The two have spent at least a combined $28 million to date—with associated outside groups dumping another $25 million in ads—making this the most expensive congressional race so far in this midterm election cycle.
Republican operatives from Washington to Pennsylvania quickly mobilized this week in a mad scramble to dig into Barnette’s record for potential lines of attack. By Wednesday night, a pro-Oz super PAC was running ads on YouTube attacking Barnette for once circulating a petition to create a statue for Barack Obama, part of an oddball compromise Barnette once proposed to save a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C. In a Wednesday appearance on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show, McCormick pointed to Barnette’s 2020 defeat as proof that she’s a guaranteed loser.
“She’s been tested,” McCormick said. “Even the last two years, she ran for Congress and lost by 20 points."
Trump, himself, weighed in on Thursday in a statement, saying she “will never be able to win the General Election” and reminded his followers that Oz was his pick.
Barnette’s recent rise has been powered in the primary in part by a video in which she lays out her background as the product of her then 11-year-old mother’s rape to argue for sweeping restrictions on abortion, including in cases of rape. But Barnette’s story may have inspired Republican voters, her hardline stance against abortion even in the case of rape might not play so well in the general election. Other potential general-election weaknesses included her ties to Jan. 6, her attacks on Muslims and LGBT people, her campaign’s unwillingness to discuss her background, and her flirtations with QAnon.
Barnette refused to concede her 2020 congressional defeat to Rep. Madeleine Dean (D), hiring an amateur election fraud “expert” only to fire him after the man failed to find compelling proof that she had been cheated. She chartered three buses to take people to the Jan. 6 protests in Washington, claiming in a Dec. 22, 2020 Facebook video that the country was being stolen from Trump supporters.
“Fight, fight, fight,” Barnette said. “This is our country. This is not their country. This is our country.”
Later in the video, Barnette blended a reference to Christmas family dinners with a militant call for Trump supporters to use a “sword” and prepare for Jan. 6.
“We will enjoy our families with our sword drawn,” Barnette said.
Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty
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