You're looking at a state where the Republicans who win statewide elections are people like Arlen Specter, Pat Toomey, Tom Corbett and Tom Ridge. They are all the types of big-government globalists who most Freepers despise, but who do much better than the Lou Barlettas and the Doug Mastrianos of the political scene.
“Mehmet Oz was the perfect candidate for grabbing moderate suburban voters — especially stupid Karens. That’s why he was a better candidate for this Senate race than any of his competitors.”
Yes, that was the thinking behind him being one of the allowed candidates. I even had stated as much several times, and that he would likely play better than average in the Philly/eastern PA regions (or at least that is the argument being presented for him) and even stated long ago, that He was probably a very good candidate for some purple suburban eastern congressional district. Problem was, as I pointed out, he would NOT be able to perform in the areas where Republicans need to run up the score to pull off a win.
Thinking was that hey, he’ll do better than average in those areas, and the T will show up for him and between the two he’s got a chance.. Reality is, any gains he might have gotten in such areas, would have been more than countered by lesser support in the Deep Red places.. because unlike suburban wives who watched his show an liked em, he’s going to smell funny and not bring any excitement to the T... and he didn’t.
In the end, OZ underperformed Trump everywhere except for I believe 3 counties statewide in terms of percentages, so he didn’t manage to get the suburban pull or the Conservative pull.
Lets take Toomey for an example.. Toomey is effectively booted because he betrayed the base with his Impeachment vote.. so he knows he can’t win so he retires... so then the party puts up OZ who is even less conservative than Toomey, and expects that’s a winning hand?
Like I said the GOP establishment of PA is utterly out of touch with their electorate. They seriously believed that they could sell OZ to the T and get the turnout they needed.. and that was a fools errand. We threw out one guy but you want us to replace him with someone even less conservative?
Now, I won’t get into how badly the GOP ground game is either... because make no mistake they were outmaneuvered top to bottom... Massive add buys and annoying texting will NEVER EVER make up for pounding the pavement.. And in the dems absolutely owned the latter.