HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican Ted Budd will face Democrat Cheri Beasley in North Carolina’s Senate race after both easily clinched primary victories Tuesday night, as voters in five states weighed in on contests that could decide control of Congress, governor’s mansions and key elections offices later this year.
With her win, Beasley, a former state supreme court justice, is aiming to become North Carolina’s first Black senator. Budd’s strong performance is also a victory for former President Donald Trump, who elevated the little-known congressman with a surprise endorsement nearly a year ago.
But much of the attention on Tuesday centers on Pennsylvania, where Trump’s preferred Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, has divided conservatives. Some are suspicious of the ideological leanings of the celebrity heart surgeon who gained fame as a frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show. Oz has spent much of the campaign in a heated fight with former hedge fund CEO David McCormick.
That’s allowed commentator Kathy Barnette to emerge in the final days of the primary as a conservative alternative to both Oz and McCormick. Should she win the primary and general election, Barnette would be the first Black Republican woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
Trump, who has held campaign-style rallies with Oz, insists he is the best candidate to keep the Senate seat in Republican hands in the fall. Given his level of involvement in the race, a loss would be a notable setback for the former president, who is wielding endorsements as a way to prove his dominance over the GOP ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.
The year’s midterm primary season is entering its busiest stretch with races also unfolding in Kentucky, Oregon and Idaho.
Democrats have their own high-profile contests. In Pennsylvania, progressive Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has dominated the Senate race but was forced off the campaign trail by a stroke. The 52-year-old tweeted a picture of himself casting an emergency absentee ballot from the hospital. Later Tuesday he tweeted: “I just got out of a procedure to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator in my heart. We got the all-clear that it was successful, and that I’m on track for a full recovery.”
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Attorney General John Shapiro, who was unopposed for his party’s governor’s nomination, tweeted that he had mild COVID-19 symptoms that were forcing him from the campaign trail.
Tuesday’s contests could ultimately determine how competitive the general election will be this fall, when control of Congress, governor’s mansions and key elections posts are up for grabs. That’s especially true in the perennial political battleground of Pennsylvania, where some Republicans are already worried that Doug Mastriano is too extreme to woo moderates who are often decisive in general elections.
“There’s definitely some concern in large factions of the party,” said Pennsylvania Republican strategist Vince Galko.
More fundamentally, Tuesday’s primaries could test voters’ commitment to democratic principles. Barnette is running even further to the right than Oz and participated in the January 2021 rally that turned into an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Then there’s Mastriano, who was also outside the Capitol during the mob attack and would appoint Pennsylvania’s chief elections official if he becomes governor. He has pledged to take the extraordinary step of requiring voters to “re-register” to vote — even though that’s barred by the National Voter Registration Act and likely violates significant protections under federal, and possibly state, law.
Mastriano made Trump’s lies about widespread electoral fraud costing him the presidency a centerpiece of his campaign — and has been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot following his efforts to name a slate of alternate Electoral College electors in Trump’s favor.
Stacy Steinly, a 51-year-old school bus assistant, cast her ballot in the town of Hamburg, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles west of Allentown. She said she chose Mastriano because “he was sticking by President Trump and saying that everything was fraudulent.”
“Everything he was talking about was making sense,” said Steinly, who wore a black T-shirt that said “Biden is not my president (or anyone else’s) based on legal votes.”
Trump’s safest bet might have been Budd, who overcome a slow start to emerge from 14 Republican primary candidates, including former Gov. Pat McCrory, as the winner of North Carolina’s Republican Senate primary.
While much of the attention during the opening phase of the primary season has focused on Trump’s grip on the GOP, the contests also serve as a referendum on Biden’s leadership of the Democratic Party. In the president’s native state of Pennsylvania, Rep. Conor Lamb, a moderate in the mold of Biden, is at risk of being trounced by Fetterman.
Lamb said Tuesday he had detected “frustration” among Democratic primary voters, a feeling he said he shared as the party has struggled to accomplish much of its policy agenda. But he argued that moderates helped Democrats retake control of the House in 2018 and that the party should “double down” on that approach this year.
“What I’ve been trying to do throughout this campaign is talk about the fact that no matter how difficult it is, we actually know as a party what it takes to be successful,” Lamb told a Pittsburgh radio station.
Fetterman, known for his hulking, 6-foot-8 stature and tattoos, and for championing causes including universal health care, has appealed to many Democrats with an outsider image.
Robert Sweeney, 59, also from Hamburg, said he voted for Fetterman because “he seemed like a decent guy and knows what he’s doing.”
___
Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam contributed from Hamburg, Pennsylvania.