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Posted on 05/18/2022 7:31:10 PM PDT by lightman
The lay of the land in Pennsylvania’s excruciating Republican U.S. Senate primary changed little Wednesday as elections officials churned through the biggest chunk of uncounted ballots.
Dr. Mehmet Oz’s lead over former Wall Street executive David McCormick had shrunk some, to 1,242 votes as of 9 p.m. That was cut in half from Oz’s 2,594 vote lead as of 11 a.m.
But shrinking faster was the stack of on-time but uncounted mail-in ballots. Based on the Department of State’s real-time tallies, the total mail-in vote count had grown by about 20,500 through the day Wednesday. That means, at most, there should be about 12,000 more Republican mail-ins to be processed. And that meant that McCormick’s path to victory was narrowing.
Through the day, Oz’s vote share in the full seven-candidate field had dropped to 31.2 percent. McCormick was stuck at 31.1 percent.
Oz and his campaign were still reluctant to declare victory Wednesday, and did not respond to requests for comment from PennLive.
But his most influential backer, former President Donald J. Trump, who endorsed Oz in April and held a campaign rally for him earlier this month, couldn’t show the same restraint.
According to The Washington Post, Trump sought to declare on his social media site, Truth Social, that Oz, a TV personality and heart surgeon, won the race. He derided the mail-in ballots, The Post said, posting: “Here we go again! In Pennsylvania they are unable to count the Mail-in Ballots. It is a BIG MESS. Our Country should go to paper ballots, with same day voting.”
He later urged Oz to “declare victory.”
“It makes it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they ‘just happened to find,’” Trump said, even though neither campaign has voiced any concerns with the primary count.
McCormick’s team, meanwhile, also declined to make public statements.
But privately, campaign sources said they were sticking with cautious optimism that the gap can be closed and are focused on making sure every legitimate ballot is counted, especially given Allegheny County’s announcement Wednesday that there are potentially more than 6,000 outstanding votes there that, because of mistakes by precinct officials, are in safekeeping until the county’s return board convenes for official canvassing on Friday.
Allegheny is where McCormick, a recently retired CEO of Bridgewater Associates, relocated to when he moved back to Pennsylvania this year, and it’s one of the counties where he ran best in this race. But it’s unclear how many of those uncounted votes were cast by Republicans, so the ultimate impact of that delayed count is unknowable.
Election judges statewide must also make rulings on provisional ballots, and there will likely also be some straggling military member ballots, which can be received for up to a week after the election.
Any way you slice it, the Republican Senate race appears to be headed for an automatic recount. State law requires that in cases where the margin of victory is less than a half-percent of the total turnout, unless the candidate within that margin waves it off.
The winner of the GOP race will advance into what is expected to be a hotly-contested and nationally-watched general election campaign against Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who easily won the Democratic Party nomination.
https://electionreturns.pa.gov/
Pennsylvania Ping!
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Around midnight Oz led by about 300 votes.
That widened to around 1500 at 8 AM.
Mow down to about 1200.
Worst two picks in history. No matter who wins, Americans lose.
Oz would be useful in getting rid of a confirmed RINO.
If Oz doesn’t prove to be a conservative, which I do not believe he is, we cam run somebody who is a confirmed conservative in the next election.
Thanks for the update.
Oz is a Trump-endorsed RINO.
McCormick is a Mitch-endorsed RINO who would be a Romney clone.
Given these two choices, I would vote for Oz.
“Worst two picks in history. No matter who wins, Americans lose.”
If you or your children were in an emergency, and needed a doctor to save your life, and Oz was the only one nearby, would you let him save your life?
I guess our best hope is that the Republican Governor can be elected, and in the event of DEATH, he can replace the deceased Senator with Kathy Barnett. I hope she strongly is engaged in his election campaign trail for Governor.
Pay close attention to the vote by mail counts where Oz is trailing by 15,000.
Fetterman, if he lives long enough, will easily beat either of them in deep blue PA
“If Oz doesn’t prove to be a conservative, which I do not believe he is, we cam run somebody who is a confirmed conservative in the next election.”
Hell, that will be 6 years from November, not a good sign!
Wow, looking at the details of the votes there is an incredible difference in the percentage of DemocRAT vote which is mail in compared to Republican vote which is mail in.
This is ridiculous! First, early in person voting should replace absentee voting for most cases. This would make it possible to get most of the absentee ballots screened before election day. Second, no candidate should be able to win a primary election while receiving less than 50% of the votes cast. There should be a runoff between the top two candidates.
Thanks for the link.
Just about 1200 votes difference now betw. Oz and McC.
There will be a recount.
The next question that must be asked is if the GOP establishment will do likewise to put McCormick in the winner's circle.
PA not so blue.
I never thought VA would go Republican again, but Youngkin managed. I just don’t think PA, at this point, is going to go against fetterman.
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