On Tuesday, Republican candidates favoured by Donald Trump won their party’s primaries for governor of Pennsylvania and the United States Senate in North Carolina, in the most significant test of the former president’s clout in his party ahead of November’s midterm elections.
However, a Trump-backed Republican congressman in North Carolina lost his attempt for re-election following a series of self-inflicted scandals, and Trump’s choice for governor of Idaho, Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin, failed to unseat the incumbent Republican, Brad Little.
Although votes were still being counted in the high-profile Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, where Trump-backed TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz was locked in a tight race with former hedge fund executive David McCormick, the biggest election night of the year so far delivered mixed results for Trump and his far-right movement.
Although Trump lost the White House to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, his continued power over his party has been a prominent subject of this election as Republicans fight to wrest control of the United States Congress from Democrats.
Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator who has backed up Trump’s phoney accusations of 2020 voter fraud by marching to the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, will face Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Insiders in the Republican Party worried that Mastriano’s primary victory would be for naught if he alienated moderate voters in the general election on Nov. 8.
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Trump has sponsored over 150 candidates in an attempt to cement his position as the party’s kingmaker, albeit his decisions have not always been successful.
Despite being hospitalised since Friday after suffering a stroke, Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman — a goateed, tattooed liberal whose affinity for hoodies and shorts has given him everyman appeal – won the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania’s premier U.S. Senate contest.
Just hours after having a pacemaker put to correct the abnormal cardiac rhythms that caused the stroke, Fetterman, a progressive, defeated moderate U.S. Representative Conor Lamb. He has stated that doctors expect him to make a full recovery.
Biden complimented Fetterman in a statement, but warned that whoever wins the Republican primary “would be too dangerous, too craven, and too extremist” for the state.
The Republican opponent for Fetterman has yet to be determined. According to Edison Research, Oz was ahead of McCormick by around 2,700 ballots out of over 1.3 million tabulated, with more than 90% of the predicted vote reported. Kathy Barnette, a conservative political analyst, came in third place.
A recount is required in Pennsylvania if the margin of victory is less than 0.5 percent.
Both Oz and McCormick informed supporters late Tuesday that they expected to win, but that the number of remaining mail ballots would prevent a definite result from being announced that night.
