ICYMI: Pennsylvania Senate Republican race between Oz and McCormick turns ugly early [CNN]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

CNN: Pennsylvania Senate Republican race between Oz and McCormick turns ugly early

By Michael Warren and Alex Rogers

February 4, 2022

Key Points:

• In the Pennsylvania Senate race, one candidate is accusing a rival of having “dual loyalties” to the US and a foreign country. In turn, that rival is charging his opponent with being too cozy with China.
  

• But these aren’t candidates from opposing parties. They are hedge-fund executive David McCormick and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, two of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination.
  
  
• Without a clear primary preference from either Trump or Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, the Oz and McCormick teams are preparing to engage in a war of attrition.
  
  
• Both candidates have flooded the airwaves with television ads in the first weeks of their campaigns, spending a combined more than $10 million to overwhelm primary voters.
  
  
• The ads, particularly from the super PACs, are hitting the rival candidates hard on everything from McCormick’s hedge fund investment in China to a PSA from Oz touting the benefits of Obamacare.
  
  
• Hanging over the whole primary is the contest over who can appeal most to the pro-Trump Republican voters. That’s forced candidates to try to align — or in some cases, realign — themselves with the GOP base on issues like the validity of the 2020 election and being tough on China.
  
  
• The more negative ads indicate where the primary is headed. Groups supporting McCormick have already hit Oz with claims he is a “Hollywood liberal” who supported Obamacare, while the Oz campaign aired an ad warning voters about McCormick’s financial investments in China to the sound of a banging gong.
  
  
• “McCormick: China’s friend, not ours,” said the ad’s narrator.
  
  
• Toughness on China has emerged as another litmus test for Republican candidates… McCormick was still CEO of Bridgewater when the company raised $1.3 billion for a new private fund in China.
  
  
• McCormick also spoke favorably of China as a top Treasury Department official in the George W. Bush administration.
  
  
• “When China succeeds, the United States succeeds,” said McCormick in a 2007 speech on the US-China economic relationship at Peking University in Beijing.
  
  
• “He is choosing not to be honest with Pennsylvanians about his business dealings and coziness with China,” Oz said in a statement.
  
  
• Oz, meanwhile, is contending with claims from McCormick allies that he previously praised aspects of the Affordable Care Act. One ad from a group called Pennsylvania Patriots uses a 2010 clip of Oz from a public-service announcement in California touting the benefits of the newly-passed Obamacare law.
  
  
• The back-and-forth between Oz and McCormick and their allies is only the beginning of what’s to come in Pennsylvania over the next few months, said Dent, a CNN contributor.
  
  
• “These ads will be about as subtle as a crowbar across the bridge of the nose,” said Dent.
  

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