Kathy Barnette argues that Muslims are "animals" and active practitioners of incest and pedophilia. And that transgender people are "deformed and demonic" beings. Under premises like these, she aspires today to become the Republican candidate for the seat in the Senate that will be contested in Pennsylvania in the mid-term elections next November: one of the key races in the elections.
As well; Contrary to the bets of his and Donald Trump's party, the latest polls give Barnette a high chance of beating popular television host Doctor Mehmet Oz, the former president's favorite, in Tuesday's primary.
No less extremist than Barnette is the man who is running for the post of Governor of Pennsylvania in those Republican primaries, the current Senator in the Upper House of the state Doug Mastriano. To get an idea of how far his ultra vocation goes, a note is enough: in his opinion, support for the right to abortion makes American Democrats the closest thing to Nazis, as he stated a few days ago. Mastriano does have Trump's support
For the position of United States senator, the former president prefers Dr. Oz instead because "he has had an enormously successful career on television"; because "his show of him is great" and because he is "in all those women's bedrooms telling them the good and the bad". Never mind that on his daytime shows = which he suspended a few weeks ago to focus on the campaign =, the doctor sold miracle products and gave alternative medicine advice widely discussed by the scientific community.
But Oz's big problem is that, according to the evolution of the polls, a large part of the Republican base does not clearly see his adherence to the ultra principles that his opponent Kathy Barnett ardently wields. Faced with certain doubts and fickleness of the doctor regarding abortion and even in tune with advances in public health through the Medicare system of former President Barack Obama, Barnette is clearly ultra-conservative in her rejection of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, in her commitment for private healthcare and, incidentally, in his support for the free possession of weapons.
Barnette indicated in his campaign that the extremist current MAGA (Make America Great Again, let's make America great again) "does not belong to former President Trump", because "it was not our values that conformed to the former president but rather the reverse".
For his part, Trump said Thursday that “Kathy Barnette can never win the election” and noted that “voting for anyone other than Dr. Oz in the primary is voting against victory in the fall.”
This fracture could end up costing the Republicans a seat in the Senate that, for most analysts, could be decisive in the November elections and therefore tip the balance of control of the Upper House towards one party or another.
Returning to the race for the Republican candidacy for governor, Trump's endorsement of Doug Mastriano is, in the eyes of many members of the formation, completely insufficient to defeat the Democratic candidate and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running for his own primaries with hardly any opposition.
The Republicans control the two state chambers but they long for the governorship to leave behind the brakes that the Democrat who will leave office in November, Tom Wolf, has put behind them in recent years.
Pennsylvania is one of five states where primaries are held this Tuesday (North Carolina, Oregon, Idaho and Kentucky are the other four). It is an important partial exam where Trump, with his bets on candidates not always well received from the outset by the bulk of the Republican base, tests his influence on voters and his projection as a leader.
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