Kathy Barnette slams GOP ‘elites,’ calls Mehmet Oz ‘lesser of two evils,’ will vote for him

Mehmet Oz sure can’t call this an endorsement.

Kathy Barnette, who finished third in the Republican primary for Senate, is clearly still angry about how “elite Republicans” and allies like Sean Hannity on Fox News went after her when polling showed her surging.

In a pair of interviews this week, Barnette said she’ll support all Republicans on the Nov. 8 ballot. But, speaking Tuesday on a right-wing podcast hosted by Tim Pool, she showed zero enthusiasm for Oz.

“If we keep holding our nose, voting for the lesser of two evils, you have to ask yourself, as conservatives, what are we actually conserving?” said Barnette, while also knocking the Democratic nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, as “a horrible individual.”

Barnette repeatedly bashed unnamed Republican “elites” for her loss, while demurring when asked about former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Oz. She wasn’t so shy about Hannity, having appeared on his show several times before he took aim at her candidacy.

“The people have chosen, in large part because Sean Hannity is a jackass,” Barnette said. “The people were manipulated!”

Barnette followed up with an interview on 1210 WPHT-AM Thursday, again noting that the attacks on her campaign came from “the GOP machine.”

“CNN didn’t do a hit job on me,” she said. “The left wasn’t coming after me. It was my own.”

In both interviews, Barnette accused Republican power brokers of “sabotaging conservatives,” valuing the control of candidate selection more than winning elections.

A WPHT listener called in to stress the size of Fetterman’s “fan club” and expressed concern that Barnette was “more anti-Fetterman than pro-Oz.” Show host Dom Giordano cut that call off, suggesting it came from a Fetterman booster.

Barnette, a conservative commentator from Montgomery County who ran for Congress in 2020, refused to answer when Clout asked her if she will explicitly endorse Oz. Seems she’s still also salty about Inquirer reporting on her embrace of 2020 election conspiracy theories.

Oz’s campaign did not respond when asked if he had asked for Barnette’s endorsement.

The Republican nominee in June told Fox News all his primary competitors had already endorsed him. Barnette quickly responded this way on CNN: “No, I have not endorsed Oz. He knows that.”

Josh Shapiro won’t let an evocative political bogeyman go to waste.

Pennsylvania’s attorney general and Democratic nominee for governor started fund-raising late last week on the specter of Trump’s plans “to spend big on TV ads right here” in the state.

It’s true — Trump, with $93 million in his political action committee as of Aug. 31, has authorized a new PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., to air television ads seeking to influence the Nov. 8 midterm election.

But that spending in Pennsylvania, $828,940 as of Thursday, is dedicated to attacking only Fetterman on behalf of Oz.

Trump also endorsed the Republican nominee for governor, State Sen. Doug Mastriano, just before the May primary. But Trump and his allies are not, as of now, spending a dime to help Mastriano.

Shapiro has his own allies joining in. His email to supporters, citing Mastriano’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania, was also sent to the email lists for three progressive groups, Common Good Virginia, The Majority Rules, and Democracy Defense Fund, along with the Western Pennsylvania congressional campaigns of Democrats Chris Deluzio and Summer Lee.

Those joint efforts split any donations: half to Shapiro, half to the groups or candidates.

Democracy Defense Fund was founded by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who sent her own email Monday to Shapiro’s supporters, warning that her uncle has thrown his “full support behind one of the most extreme candidates for governor in the entire country.”

A spokesperson for MAGA Inc., which is also airing ads for Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, and Ohio, did not respond when asked about the lack of support for Mastriano.

Mastriano and Shapiro agree on one thing: Their race is too close to call.

Polling tells another story. An average of polls from Real Clear Politics showed Shapiro on Thursday with an 11.7-point lead, while an average of polls from FiveThirtyEight put Shapiro up by 10.3 points.

Shapiro uses talk of a close race to keep up his fund-raising advantage over Mastriano, who is trying to boost a campaign that at times appears to be flagging. But along the way, Mastriano, a state senator from Franklin County, tripped over some facts.

Speaking Tuesday on 1210 WPHT-AM, Mastriano claimed Real Clear Politics projected him as “losing by double-digits” in the crowded Republican primary in May. Mastriano finished 24 points ahead of the second-place candidate, former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta.

“We’re constantly underestimated,” Mastriano said. “Which is OK. We want to be underestimated.”

That sounded off, so Clout went back for a fact-check.

Real Clear Politics projected Mastriano with a 14-point lead over Barletta just before the primary and showed him at the front of the pack starting in late March and early April.

How did Mastriano get that so wrong? Clout asked. He didn’t answer.

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.