David McCormick and Mehmet Oz made their pitch to Northeastern Pennsylvania at an ice fishing party

TAFTON, Pa. — Pete Helms holds his annual ice fishing party at a hunting club that’s so deep in Pike County, its address doesn’t even register on Google Maps. To get there, you just have to know it’s a half-mile down a wooded, winding road from the Hammered Steel Tavern.

There at the Tall Oaks club, in front of a stone fireplace, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee stood Thursday to talk about his support for David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO and one of the front-runners in Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary.

As McCormick looked over a sea of hundreds sipping craft beer, Mehmet Oz — the celebrity surgeon and the other front-runner — sat at the end of a wooden table, listening intently and eating pierogi off a paper plate.

“I’m running because I think the country is headed in the wrong direction,” McCormick told the crowd, “and the weakness and wokeness is taking us in a place we won’t recognize.”

He wrapped up his brief remarks, and Helms took the mic: “Before everybody leaves,” he said, “we have another friend of ours here. Dr. Oz, do you want to come up and say a few words?”

“This is like a debate stage,” Oz joked.

Other than debates and forums, candidates for statewide office don’t often run into one another on the trail. Campaigns have a lot of ground to cover, and Pennsylvania’s Senate race is one of the most closely watched in the nation.

But on Thursday afternoon, instead of a hunting club at the end of a rocky road in Tafton, Pa., Helms’ 50th annual ice fishing party felt like the center of Pennsylvania’s Republican political universe.

The event started decades ago with a few guys who went ice fishing in February in Lake Wallenpaupack. Now, few bother with the fishing part. It’s evolved into a meet and greet where some of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s most well-known people in business and politics bump elbows.

There was Lou Barletta, the former congressman and a front-runner in the Republican primary for governor, who scarfed down a burger and then entered the room to chants of “Louuuuuuu!” State Sen. Mario Scavello (R., Monroe) was there, and State Rep. Jonathan Fritz (R., Susquehanna) darted around, introducing friends to one another.

“This is not a political event,” said State Sen. Lisa Baker, a Luzerne County Republican up for reelection this year, “but it’s the political event of the year.”

» READ MORE: The Pa. Republican Senate primary is up for grabs even after Trump backed Oz, poll says

Don Sherwood, who represented parts of Northeastern Pennsylvania in Congress in the 2000s, said he firmly supports McCormick because he’s “revered” in the Bloomsburg area. McCormick graduated from Bloomsburg High School, then went to West Point and spent much of his adult life outside Pennsylvania.

His opponents have attacked him repeatedly over his residency, pointing out that he only recently bought a house outside Pittsburgh. But Sherwood, 81, who lives in Tunkhannock, Wyoming County, said McCormick’s family is known in the area.

As for Oz?

“He’s changed his position so much, he sounds disingenuous,” Sherwood said.

Oz also only moved to Pennsylvania shortly before launching his Senate campaign.

This pocket of Pennsylvania, like every other, has been blanketed with television ads bankrolled by Oz and McCormick, who are each spending millions of their personal fortunes. Some of the most memorable commercials, voters at the fishing event said, attacked Oz for his seemingly shifting positions on issues such as abortion and guns.

Oz, for his part, spoke to the crowd largely about thorny cultural issues, saying he’d be the one to fight for conservative values.

“For too long,” he said, “Republicans have walked into the culture war knife fight with neatly arranged three-by-five index cards.”

He said Thursday he was confident in his reception, saying “everyone is really happy the president endorsed me.”

But for some, even those who are undecided, the backing of former President Donald Trump is something of a liability.

“I’m looking for confidence and a new way forward, and I think we need to realign,” said Will Clauss, a real estate agent who lives in the area. Another voter, Jack Lennox, added, “That’s kinda why I like McCormick. He doesn’t hitch on to another guy’s wagon.”

By the end of the event and after meeting both candidates, Clauss, 37, said he remains undecided. He said he’s keeping an open mind because he takes his vote seriously.

“We’re in a deep red county,” he said, “and typically the winner of our primary is who takes it.”