McCormick admits to Oz in Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary election

HARRISBURG, Pa.

Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick admitted the Pennsylvania Republican primary in the U.S. Senate to renowned heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, and ended his campaign when he acknowledged that an ongoing census across the country would not give him enough votes to cover the deficit.

After a bitter campaign that covered the airwaves with millions of dollars in offensive commercials, McCormick issued a gracious concession Friday, promising to help unite the party behind Oz.

“It’s now clear to me, with the count pretty much complete, that we have a nominee,” McCormick said at a campaign party at a hotel in Pittsburgh. “And today I called Mehmet Oz to congratulate him on the victory.”

McCormick’s concession cements a general election campaign between Oz, which was approved by former President Donald Trump, and Democrat John Fetterman in what is expected to be one of the country’s leading Senate contests.

Already, national parties are sponsoring attack commercials on television in a presidential battleground state still plagued by Trump’s baseless allegations of a stolen election in 2020.

The result could help determine control of the tightly divided chamber, and Democrats see it as perhaps their best chance of winning a seat in the race to replace retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey.

More than two weeks after the primary election, Republicans had begun to consider that a bitter primary election was further pulled out of a recount and litigation over postal ballots.

“I think it will be fine, I think there will be zero problems,” said Pat Poprik, GOP chairman of densely populated Bucks County, where members of the state party committee had approved McCormick. “A lot of people I know liked both candidates, thought both were good and had to make a last-minute decision between them.”

In a statement, Oz said he was grateful for McCormick’s pledge of support.

Prior to the count, Oz McCormick led by 972 votes out of 1.34 million votes counted in the May 17 primary election. The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the race because an automatic recount is underway and the margin between the two candidates is only 0.07 percentage points.

Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, admitted earlier Friday in a statement that he almost died when he suffered a stroke a few days before his primary election. He said he had ignored warning signs for years and a doctor’s advice on taking blood-thinning medication.

Oz, best known as the host of the daytime television “The Dr. Oz Show,” had to overcome a flurry of attack ads and concerns among hardline Trump supporters about his conservative credentials about guns, abortion, transgender rights and other key points. Republican issues.

The 61-year-old Oz leaned on Trump’s approval as proof of his conservative bona fides, while Trump attacked Oz’s rivals and maintained that Oz has the best chance of winning in November in the presidential battlefield state.

Oz had only had a small history with the Republican Party – but he had a friendship with Trump that went back almost 20 years, and as Trump told him in a 2016 appearance on Oz’s show, “you know my wife is a big fan of this show. “

Meanwhile, McCormick made Oz’s dual citizenship of Turkey a problem in the race, suggesting that Oz would pose a national security risk. If elected, Oz would be the country’s first Muslim senator.

Oz was born in the US and served in the Turkish military and voted in the 2018 election. Oz said he would relinquish his Turkish citizenship if he won the election in November, and he accused McCormick of making “major” attacks.

Oz and McCormick covered the state’s radio waves with political ads for months, spending millions of their own money. Almost unknown to voters four months ago, McCormick had to introduce himself to voters, and he recalled Oz’s long record as a public figure for material in attack ads. He got help from a super PAC who supported him and who spent $ 20 million.

Like McCormick, Oz moved from the state to run in Pennsylvania.

Oz, a Harvard graduate, New York Times bestselling author and self-proclaimed wellness advocate, lived for the past few decades in a mansion in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, across the Hudson River overlooking Manhattan – and was accused of being a carpet baker and political. tourist.

The renowned heart surgeon emphasized his connections to Pennsylvania and said he grew up just across the state border in Delaware, attended medical school in Philadelphia and married a native Pennsylvania.

Before running, McCormick was something of a celebrity on Wall Street, running the world’s largest hedge fund and having strong Republican party establishment ties back to his service in former President George W. Bush’s administration. His wife, Dina Powell, was a vice national security adviser to Trump and also had strong party connections.

McCormick had long considered running for public office, moving from his home on Connecticut’s upscale Gold Coast to a house in Pittsburgh before declaring his candidacy.

He emphasized his connections to Pennsylvania: growing up on a farm as a wrestling and football star before heading to West Point and fighting in the Gulf War. He also spent 10 years in Pittsburgh in business, giving him a stronger claim to Pennsylvania than Oz.

Like Oz, McCormick had worked hard to gain Trump’s support, insisting he was the authentic “America First” candidate, invoking Trump’s nickname for his government philosophy.

However, Trump repeatedly attacked McCormick during the last two weeks of the campaign, leading a meeting for Oz, calling McCormick “the candidate for special interests and globalists and the Washington establishment.”

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Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at twitter.com/timelywriter

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