The Pennsylvania Senate primary is tomorrow and it both critical and fascinating.
CRITICAL – because the election in November 2020 will determine a replacement for retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey and this (Pennsylvania) is the best pick up opportunity for the Dems. With the Senate split 50-50 (and Kamala Harris breaking the tie) maintaining control means that the Dems will continue to be able to confirm President Biden’s judicial nominees. Losing just one seat would put Mitch McConnell in control and would ensure that any Supreme Court vacancy in the next two years would be held open until after the 2024 electionl Winning Pennsylvania would give the Dems a cushion so that even if they lost one of their own seats they could still maintain control. With Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema part of the Dem majority they are still two votes short of the 50 votes they would need to change the filibuster and allow a majority vote to pass transformative progressive legislation (like voter rights, abortion rights, health care rights etc.) Winning Pennsylania of course would put them half way to the two seat pick up that they need. For this to happen of course the Dems still need to HOLD control of the House of Representatives.
FASCINATING John Fetterman who is a very strong progressive (committed to Medicare For All, Green New Deal AND reforming the filibuster rule and was leading in all polls suffered what was called a “minor” stroke on Friday. Fetterman stroke throws curve into Pennsylvania primary | The Hill If the race were closer I’d be worried that the news of the stroke might scare away a small group of potential voters who prefer Fetterman but mainly want to make sure and win the General Election. Because of the last minute timing (mail in vote of course has already begun) I expect that Fetterman will still win the Democratic primary handily. However his strength and ability to campaign in the General Election will probably be apparent quickly.
The Republican race on the other hand has been a brutal proxy war between Television personality doctor Mehmet Oz (who has been endorsed by former President Trump) and former hedge fund executive David McCormick (with a super pac backed by News Corp Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Julia Koch last month, the widow of the late billionaire David Koch) The candidates and their super pacs have reportedly spent almost 50 million dollars on TV ads attacking each other. Not surprisingly (this often happens in multi candidate races where two candidates attack each other) a third candidate who everyone ignored quietly snuck up in the polls.
Right Wing extremist Kathy Barnette who spent almost no money is apparently the real deal for MAGA wingnuts who have been convinced by McCormick and Oz advertising that both of them are billionaire outsider frauds just pretending to be crazy. Finally, this weekend Trump and Oz and his supporters got scared by Barnette’s surge and have started attacking her as unelectable because of her extreme pro trum anti muslim history (irony has never been strong in MAGA world). McCormick has been relatively quiet on the assumption/hope that Barnette will pull more votes from Oz than from him. Finally, in the very last minute someone released a photo showing that Barnette had actually been at the January 6 rally marching with the proud boys to the capitol. Barnette said she was leading buses to DC for ‘our 1776 moment’ on January 6, 2021 – CNNPolitics
Personally, I don’t think any of the attacks on Barnette are going to hurt her in the Republican primary, and I would not be at all surprised if she actually won the nomination. Besides being a full on honest to god crazy MAGA nut, she also is fanatically anti abortion. None of that is going to play well in the general election .