Pennsylvania's May Surprise

With Pennsylvania's Senate primaries just days away, the front-runner on the Republican side is another Trump MAGA nutjob, just not the rich MAGA nutjob Trump has endorsed.

Wearing a bright smile, Kathy Barnette shook hands and introduced herself around the patio of a Montgomery County country club: “I’m Kathy, and I’m running for United States Senate,” she said.

But many already knew that. ”People are hearing my story,” she told one voter Monday. “The momentum has been amazing.”

Few would disagree.

Running on a shoestring budget and with a personal story that begins on an Alabama pig farm, Barnette has rocketed to the forefront of Pennsylvania’s crucial Republican Senate primary, according to both public and private polling. She’s picked up late momentum as she challenges her big-spending rivals Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.

Her rise in the final days before Tuesday’s primary has stunned operatives in both parties, upending a Senate race that could decide control of the chamber.

“Everyone knows Oz is running for this race. Everyone knows McCormick is running in this race, and they’re holding their nose,” Barnette said in an interview Monday. “When they break, the undecideds, they’re gonna break in my direction. There’s nothing [Oz and McCormick] can possibly say to these people... that they haven’t already said, because they’ve spent such an insane amount of money.”

» READ MORE: From last year: She lost big in the Philly suburbs. She went hunting for voter fraud. Now Kathy Barnette is a rising GOP star.

Rival campaigns, along with news outlets, were scrambling this week to vet Barnette and her backstory. Top Senate operatives in both parties are so unfamiliar with her that they were at a loss about whether she’d make a strong general election candidate.

Questions are starting to simmer about some of Barnette’s links to fringe elements on the right, her false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, and some of her past incendiary comments — including a 2017 tweet about banning Islam and a 2010 opinion piece claiming that the “homosexual AGENDA” was seeking “domination.”

But with less than a week to go, it was also unclear if any of that would sink in with voters.

“She’s a gigantic question mark,” said one Washington Republican closely following the race.

And she’s gaining steam.

Wednesday brought her a major endorsement from the political arm of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth, which also announced a $2 million TV ad buy to boost her. A day earlier, the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List backed Barnette, and a Fox News survey showed her effectively tied with Oz and McCormick, with all three polling within the margin of error of one another.

Barnette, of Montgomery County, argues that undecided Republicans are looking for a more authentic alternative after hearing so much from Oz and McCormick on TV. Despite spending tens of millions of dollars on the race, the two men who have sucked up most of the attention have failed, so far, to win over a decisive share of the electorate.

“What [supporters] find in me is a sense of authenticity,” Barnette told The Inquirer. “They see me as one of them. And if our leadership is listening, then they would pay attention to that.”

McCormick and two super PACs funded by his wealthy allies have poured more than $35 million into the contest, while Oz and his supporters have spent more than $18 million. Each man put in at least $11 million of his own money.

Barnette’s campaign had spent less than $2 million as of April 27, according to the latest financial filings.

But Oz and McCormick often skipped smaller public forums and relied on big-name support (including former President Donald Trump for Oz and Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, for McCormick), Barnette has kept a relentless campaign schedule, crisscrossing the state with a sharp-edged message and pugilistic debate performances. She would be the first Black person and the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania.

“I knew I would not be able to compete dollar for dollar with these people, but I believe I have a better message,” Barnette said. “And all I’ve done is just walk outside of my home to deliver that message.”

 

It would be a heartwarming tale of a Black woman beating not one but two millionaire men who focused on each other instead of her and knocked each other out, leaving Barnette to take the nomination, except for the fact that we're talking about which awful Republican is going to try to destroy our country.

 

And Barnette is just as awful as the rest, as Steve M. reminds us.

In the race for the GOP Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, another extremist zealot -- also an election truther -- might be poised for an upset win, and again, party regulars are panicking.

Influential Republicans in Washington and among the nationwide party elite are having a belated "oh s--t" moment over the previously unimaginable prospect that Kathy Barnette could win their party's nomination for the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania....

Trump ally Steve Bannon described Barnette as an "audience favorite" for his "War Room" podcast....

He's praised her for having never stopped talking about decertifying the 2020 Biden election and for refusing to concede her own loss in a 2020 House race.

 (Barnette refused to concede even though she lost that race by 19 points.)

Barnette's also close to the pillow entrepreneur and "Stop the Steal" leader Mike Lindell. And she's effectively running on a ticket with the leading Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate, state Sen. Doug Mastriano. 

She's surged in the polls from mid-single digits as recently as April to around 20% now.

She's only 2 points behind front-runner Mehmet Oz in the latest Fox poll.

Barnette has a social media history that could cause her problems in a general election.
She has also written that "the homosexual movement" seeks "domination" over the culture.

So if she wins the nomination, maybe she'll have a harder time winning the votes of center-right upscale suburbanites than Oz or David McCormick would.

 

Republican racism, Islamophobia, and homophobia aren't a dealbreaker for a Black woman running for Senate in the Republican party. Think about that.

Oh, and what if these Trump "election fraud" Big Liars loses in 2022 in a close race in a GOP state?

Steve M. again:

So what happens if one or both of these passionate election truthers loses by a few points in November? What happens if election truthers lose in other purple states -- Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin? An NBC story about Mastriano focuses on his possible role in the 2024 election if he's elected ("Should Mastriano win in the fall, he would have broad authority in overseeing elections by appointing a secretary of state") -- but what happens this year if he isn't elected, or if Barnette is the nominee and she isn't? Do you think the right will quietly accept any losses outside deep-blue states?

All the states I've named have Republican-dominated legislatures. I think there'll be demands for legislative intervention in any purple state where Democrats manage a statewide victory. There could be deomnstrations and violence. We could be looking at January 6-style insurrections all over the country, if the expected GOP wave doesn't happen.

When the media talks about threats to democracy, it focuses only on presidential elections. But democracy happens in the states, too. And that's where it might break down this year.

 

In a state like Michigan where jurors refused to accept the kidnapping plot against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer?  Yes, I absolutely believe we're going to see violence over Republican losses in red states, and I fully expect those races to be overturned on "evidence of fraud". 

It will get worse.