Mitko doesn’t feel like he knows the celebrity heart surgeon, who narrowly won his primary in May with Trump’s endorsement. Instead, Mitko plans to vote for Oz’s Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a name he was familiar with from Fetterman’s time as mayor of nearby Braddock. “Dr. Oz didn’t show me one thing to get me to vote for him,” he said. “I won’t vote for someone I don’t know.” Mitko’s thinking underscores the political challenges facing Trump and the rest of the Republican Party as the former president heads to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for his first rally of the general election season. While Trump’s endorsed picks won many Republican primaries this summer, many of the candidates he endorsed were inexperienced and polarizing figures now competing in their November races. That puts control of the Senate — once supposed to be a lock for Republicans — on the line. Those candidates include Oz in Pennsylvania, 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 have never run for values before for very high-profile Senate races,” said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres. While not yet ruling out his party’s chances, he said: “It’s a much more difficult task than a candidate who has won several tough political races in the past.” The stakes are especially high for Trump as he sets the stage for an expected 2024 presidential run amid a series of escalating legal challenges, including the FBI’s recent seizure of classified documents from his Florida home. Investigators also continue to look into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Last week, President Joe Biden gave a speech in Philadelphia, warning that Trump and other “MAGA” Republicans – an acronym for Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” – posed a threat to US democracy. Biden tried to frame the upcoming vote, as he did the 2020 election, as a battle for the “soul of the nation.” Biden’s Labor Day visit to Pittsburgh will be his third in the state in a week, a sign of Pennsylvania’s importance to the election year. While Republicans were once seen as having a good chance of winning control of both houses of Congress in November, amid soaring inflation, high gas prices and falling Biden approval ratings, Republicans have found themselves on the defensive from when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision to protect abortion rights. Some candidates, like Doug Mastriano, the hard-line GOP gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, are sticking to their playbooks, hoping they can win by proving Trump’s loyal base, even if they alienate more moderate voters. Mastriano, who wants to ban abortion even when the pregnancies are the result of rape or incest or endanger the life of the mother, played a leading role in Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election and was seen outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as pro-Trump rioters stormed the building. But others are trying to broaden their reach by removing from their websites references to anti-abortion messages that are out of step with the political tide. Masters, for example, removed language from a policy section of his website that described him as “100% pro-life,” as well as saying, “if we had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.” Others have downplayed the once-prominent Trump endorsements. The changing climate has prompted rounds of finger-pointing in the party, including from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who last month cited “candidate quality” as he lowered expectations that Republicans would regain control of the Senate in November . Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said those who complain about the party’s nominees are “disrespecting” the voters who elected them. “It’s an amazing act of cowardice, and ultimately, it’s a betrayal of the conservative cause,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner. Trump also hit back, calling McConnell a “disgrace” as he defended the party’s slate of nominees. “There are some very good people,” he said in a radio interview. “You know, it takes a lot of courage to run and they spend their wealth on it and put their reputations on the line.” Democrats have also piled on. “Senate campaigns are candidate vs. candidate battles, and Republicans have put forward a slate of deeply flawed recruits,” said David Bergstein, communications director for the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee. Trump has been credited with keeping seasoned Republicans from running by fielding flawed candidates and forcing them to take positions that are out of step with the general electorate. “All of these factors have contributed to the weakness of the remaining Republican candidates,” he said. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to requests for comment. In Pennsylvania, Republicans hope Oz’s shortcomings as a candidate will be overshadowed by concerns about Fetterman, who suffered a stroke days before the primary and was sidelined for much of the summer. He continues to keep a light public schedule and visibly struggled to speak at a recent event. Republicans recognize that Oz is struggling to prove himself authentic and have been slow to respond as Fetterman spent the summer trolling him on social media and portraying him as an unknown New Jersey carpetbagger. While Fetterman, who Republicans deride as “Bernie Sanders in gym shorts,” leads Oz in the polls and fundraising, Republicans say they expect the money gap to narrow and are happy to see Oz in impressive form. distance after being hit by $20 million in negative advertising during the primaries. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is helping fund a new round of Oz’s TV ads, and the Senate Leadership Fund, a McConnell-aligned hyperpolitical action committee, says it has added $9.5 million to the TV market — boosting its total commitment to 34 .1 million dollars until Election Day. “No matter what people may have heard in the primary, they will realize that Oz is the best choice for Pennsylvania,” said Andy Riley, a member of the Pennsylvania Republican National Committee. A super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says it has made $32 million in television ad bookings in the state. Oz won over some once-skeptical voters, like Glenn Rubendal, who didn’t vote for the TV doctor in his seven-way primary — a victory so narrow it prompted a statewide recount — but said he came. “I was listening to him talk and now I have a pro-Oz view,” said Rubendal, a retired corrections officer. Traci Martin, a registered independent, also plans to vote for Oz because she is anti-abortion, despite ads that ran during the primary featuring previous statements by Oz that appeared to support abortion rights. “I hope they are (anti-abortion),” Martin said, “but the sad thing is we live in a time where we see politicians saying one thing and doing another.”
Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report.
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