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      Fox News Hosts Splinter as Chaotic Pennsylvania Primaries Heat Up

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      Fox News is having another one of its moments.The network’s internal fissures were on public display this week as host after host, at times seemingly in dialogue with one another, either defended or threw rhetorical spitballs at different candidates in Pennsylvania’s ghost-pepper-hot Republican primary races.It was a reminder of how the battle for hearts and minds within the G.O.P. is playing out across the conservative news media, an ever-evolving ecosystem that has grown only more complex since Donald Trump’s famous glide down that golden escalator. And it was a sharp illustration of how Fox News grants extraordinary latitude to its biggest stars — with each prime-time show often operating as its own private fief.Thursday night alone was pretty wild, with Sean Hannity pumping up Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s choice for Senate, and talking down Kathy Barnette, a conservative media commentator whose late surge in the May 17 primary has alarmed Republican Party insiders and thrilled the rambunctious G.O.P. grass-roots in Pennsylvania.An hour later, Laura Ingraham was defending Barnette against what she called “smears.”To viewers, it presented the illusion of a real-time debate between warring factions of what remains the nation’s most powerful cable news channel. Fox News did not offer an on-the-record comment by publication time.“This is the closest thing to a head-to-head competition we’ve seen between two Fox hosts in quite some time,” said Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a nonprofit group aligned with the Democratic Party that monitors conservative news outlets.“When you’re watching at home, it appears seamless,” said Greta Van Susteren, a former Fox News host, who said that Ingraham probably hadn’t watched Hannity while preparing for her show. “But when I was at Fox, we all had our own real estate, and nobody ever told me what to say or do.”And it’s not just Fox. Various lesser-known conservative media stars have joined the boisterous public discussion over whether Republican voters should tap Oz, widely seen within the party’s base as a faux Trumper — or Barnette, who comes off as very much the real thing.On the Full MAGA end of the right-wing media spectrum, the likes of Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon were giving softball interviews to Barnette, who rose to prominence largely outside of Fox News. Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt, a syndicated radio host who once was considered more of an establishment figure but now supports Trump, was endorsing David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive who has appeared to fade in the Senate primary as the other two leading contenders have risen.“It’s too delicious,” said Charlie Sykes, the never-Trump host of The Bulwark Podcast, who disdainfully refers to the conservative news media as the “entertainment wing of the Republican Party.”“The irony is that the entertainment wing will build someone up and then realize, ‘Oh, my gosh, we’ve grown a monster,’” Sykes said. “It’s like watching the Republican Party grow a baby crocodile in the bathtub and be shocked when it grows into a beast and starts devouring people.”An Inside Look at Fox NewsThe conservative cable news network is one of the most influential media outlets in the United States.Tucker Carlson: The star TV host stoked white fear to conquer cable news. In the process, he transformed Fox News and became Donald J. Trump’s heir.Empire of Influence: ​​A Times investigation looked at how the Murdochs, the family behind a global media empire that includes Fox News, have destabilized democracy on three continents.What Trump Helped Build: Together, the channel and Donald Trump have redefined the limits of acceptable political discourse.How Russia Uses Fox News: The network has appeared in Russian media as a way to bolster the Kremlin’s narrative about the Ukraine war.Leaving Fox News: After 18 years with the network, the anchor Chris Wallace, who left for the now shuttered streaming service CNN+, said working at Fox News had become “unsustainable.”‘Everything’s a little more fractured’The conservative news media has fragmented since the advent of Trump, with the dominant trend being a raucous battle for the former president’s ear and favor. But shrewd observers of the landscape say this year’s midterm elections have ushered in a fresh level of chaos.“There’s a new intensity around it, I think,” said Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review. “It just feels like everything’s a little more fractured.”John Fredericks, a Virginia-based radio host who supports Oz and plans to campaign for him next week, said in an interview that while Barnette was a “nice lady,” she would get “blown out in the fall.”Fredericks predicted that Oz would win comfortably on Tuesday despite Barnette’s sudden ascent in public polls, including in a Fox News survey published this week that turbocharged the conservative news media’s debate over the Pennsylvania primaries.Dr. Mehmet Oz has found himself in a close three-way race with Barnette and David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesInternal G.O.P. polling has found that undecided voters are tending to break for the Trump-backed candidate in the last five days or so before a primary election.Democrats have giddily circulated their own research indicating that Barnette is leading the field in the Senate race by about 10 percentage points, but that survey was conducted before Trump issued a statement reiterating his support for Oz and suggesting that Barnette’s past had not been thoroughly examined.Much of that scrutiny is taking place within the conservative media, fueled in some instances by allies of McCormick and Oz, who have been promoting hastily assembled opposition research about Barnette in recent days.During Thursday night’s program, Hannity singled out Barnette’s history of offensive tweets, including Islamophobic and homophobic ones, and said she could not win a general election. Oz, who is of Turkish descent, is a nonpracticing Muslim.Hannity later wrote a series of tweets aimed directly at Barnette, beginning with: “As you know my staff has reached out to you repeatedly in the last 48 hours, it’s great to FINALLY get a response from you. Why have you been ignoring their calls and texts?”Articles in the conservative news media have zeroed in on aspects of Barnette’s biography. Salena Zito, a Pennsylvania-based columnist for The Washington Examiner, raised questions about Barnette’s military service record; The Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross wrote about how Barnette’s campaign manager hung up the phone on him when he grilled her on the subject.Mike Mikus, a veteran Democratic consultant based near Pittsburgh, said the ferment among conservative news outlets reflected the fact that to win a modern Republican primary, “you don’t need the traditional press.”For instance, the campaign of Doug Mastriano, a leading Republican contender for governor of Pennsylvania, rarely responds to queries from mainstream news organizations, and has barred journalists working for The Philadelphia Inquirer, the state’s most influential source of political news and commentary, from its events.“When an Inquirer reporter showed up at a campaign event in Lancaster County last month, two security guards asked him to leave,” the Inquirer reporters Juliana Feliciano Reyes and Andrew Seidman wrote in an article on May 4. “A printout of his photograph and those of other journalists was visible at the check-in desk.”A porous media-campaign barrierFox opinion hosts enjoy a high degree of autonomy, leading at times to a blurring of journalistic and campaign roles that would be anathema at many other outfits — including the network’s archrival, CNN, which fired Chris Cuomo last year as the scope of his entanglement with his brother, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, became clear.Tucker Carlson of Fox News helped slingshot J.D. Vance into the G.O.P. nomination for a Senate seat in Ohio, for instance, helping him gain a following and honing his pitch to voters — and, perhaps most important, to Trump. According to a New York Times analysis of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” transcripts, Vance has appeared as Carlson’s guest on the program nine times so far this year. He appeared 13 times in 2021, five times in 2020 and six times in 2019.For his part, Hannity has appeared at Trump rallies and even offered his private advice to Trump while he was in office, according to a trove of text messages published by CNN. Oz appeared on Hannity’s prime-time Fox show 20 times in 2021 and 2022, according to Media Matters.In that sense, Hannity’s crossover into a campaign role is hardly a new phenomenon in the extended Trump universe, though rarely have the porous borders between the conservative entertainment wing and the official Republican Party collapsed in such a compressed time frame.But that broader pro-Trump media world now extends well beyond Fox, and the network is losing its monopoly on the Republican base, as the party’s panic over Barnette’s ascent dramatically shows.By lunchtime on Friday, Fredericks was hosting Trump himself for a radio interview, in which the former president reiterated his skepticism of Barnette and plugged his choice, Oz.Karen Yourish More

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      Kathy Barnette’s Star Rises in Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      Trump says she can’t win in November, but Kathy Barnette presses toward Tuesday’s voting. “They’re coming out with long knives at this point,” she said.SOUTHAMPTON, Pa. — Kathy Barnette’s opposition to abortion could not be more personal.Her mother was raped and gave birth to her at age 12. “It wasn’t a choice. It was a life. My life,” an emotional campaign video starts.Ms. Barnette — a hard-right conservative locked in a seven-way Republican primary for an open Pennsylvania Senate seat — is suddenly surging in the polls, statistically tied for first place with two ultrarich men. And one of them has the lone thing more valuable than money or name recognition in a G.O.P. primary: a Trump endorsement.As the election approaches on Tuesday, Ms. Barnette, 50, a Black mother of two who has never held office and whose life story has moved many white anti-abortion conservatives, poses a late threat to the two presumptive favorites, David McCormick, a retired hedge fund manager, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, a television celebrity endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Barnette, who has publicly espoused homophobic and anti-Muslim views, has been propelled mainly by her strong debate performances and her rags-to-riches story. Not even the news on Thursday that Mr. Trump had questioned elements of her past and declared that only Dr. Oz could defeat Democrats in November seemed to bother her.Hours after Mr. Trump’s statement, Ms. Barnette spoke at a Republican Party dinner.“They’re coming out with long knives at this point,” she told the audience in Southampton, about a half-hour drive north of Philadelphia. “Right? And I had the best day of my life today.”Later, talking to reporters who were mainly barred from the event, she said she interpreted Mr. Trump’s comments as “favorable.” The former president had said that she would “never be able to win” the general election in November, but that she had a “wonderful future” in the Republican Party.“We know that President Trump does not mince words,” she said. “I think that letter was favorable. And I look forward to working with the president.”In campaign videos and in front of voters, she explains that she spent at least part of her childhood living on a pig farm in southern Alabama, in the “one stop sign” town of Nichburg, in a house without insulation, running water or an indoor toilet.“But this country allowed me to be able to create a different narrative for myself,” she told Republicans at a campaign forum on Wednesday held by a group that is dissatisfied with Pennsylvania’s mainstream G.O.P. and hopes to elect a slate of more conservative candidates to the state committee.“But that country is about to come to a close,” she warned in a singsong stump speech that blended the confidence of the pulpit and the intimacy of the confessional. “So we need good people now to stand up and begin to fight for the greatest nation that has ever existed.”From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Gail Collins: The push to restrict women’s reproductive rights is about punishing women who want to have sex for pleasure.Jamelle Bouie: The logic of the draft ruling is an argument that could sweep more than just abortion rights out of the circle of constitutional protection.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.Her vision of what that might look like is unambiguous.She opposes gun control and abortion rights and proposes limiting the federal government’s involvement in the health care industry. She has ridiculed the Muslim faith in online posts and promotes Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. In a 2010 essay, published online by the Canada Free Press, she argued that the gay rights movement — which she called “immoral and perverse” — sought “domination” and should be thwarted, citing the Bible as justification.“Make no mistake about it, homosexuality is a targeted group in the Bible, right along with cheats, drunkards, liars, foul-mouths, extortionists, robbers, and any other habitual sin,” she wrote.In an interview, she said she had no plan to move toward the center if she wins next week.Voters listen to Ms. Barnette at the Newtown forum.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesAnd to the line of people who hovered nearby at campaign events on Wednesday and Thursday hoping to snap a selfie with Ms. Barnette, her outspokenness and her life story were primary selling points.“She’s authentic,” said Dr. Anthony Mannarino, an eye surgeon who said his parents moved to the United States from Italy when he was 2, and neither of them had any formal education beyond the fifth grade.“It doesn’t look like she drove up from out of town to take a Senate seat,” Dr. Mannarino added, taking a swipe at Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick, both of whom moved back to Pennsylvania relatively recently from out of state. Ms. Barnette refers to them as carpetbaggers.“I want a regular person,” Dr. Mannarino said. “I want somebody who knows how much a hamburger costs and fills their own gas tank.”Ms. Barnette, the author of “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America,” left Alabama after graduating from college, and has been living in Pennsylvania for eight years, according to her campaign manager.She and her husband, Carl, own a four-bedroom home in Huntingdon Valley, a Philadelphia suburb, according to property records. For six years, she said, she home-schooled her son and daughter while appearing as a conservative commentator on “Fox & Friends.”“She’s a new face in government,” said Conrad J. Kraus, a real estate broker and builder who lives around the corner from Ms. Barnette and handed out fliers advertising a neighborhood open house for the candidate on Sunday. A Trump flag hangs on his tree. A doormat reading “Don’t Blame This Family. We Voted for Trump,” welcomes visitors.“A fresh face,” he said on Thursday, predicting a win. “I like that.”The Barnettes have also owned property in Texas, property records show, and her book biography on Amazon indicates that she has lived in Virginia.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      Conor Lamb Had All The Makings of a Front-Runner in Pennsylvania. So Why Is He Struggling?

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      Representative Conor Lamb was supposed to be a Democratic rising star — a Marine veteran, former prosecutor and Pennsylvania moderate who had won in Trump territory and swing suburbs alike. Scores of Democratic officials endorsed him in his run for Senate, eager to pick up a Republican-held open seat and have him roll into Washington next year to bridge the partisan chasm.It hasn’t quite worked out that way.Mr. Lamb now heads into the state’s Democratic primary on Tuesday on a much less competitive footing than he or his supporters had hoped. He trails by double digits in polling behind John Fetterman, the shorts-wearing lieutenant governor whose outsider image has resonated with the Democratic base.Two distinct forces appear to have worked against Mr. Lamb: his campaign’s strategic missteps and his misfortune to be running at a time when Democrats, much like Republicans, are rejecting their party’s centrists.The seeming meltdown for Mr. Lamb — whose initial victories in Western Pennsylvania had been a model for President Biden’s 2020 race — reflects a frustration among Democrats nationally with politicians who promise bipartisan accord, including Mr. Biden, and who have yielded meager results in Washington. It comes as the left sees a rising Republican extremism on voting rights and abortion. Some Democrats appear more eager to elect fighters than candidates who might be tempted, like party moderates, to block their priorities.“I look at him as another Joe Manchin,” said Elen Snyder, a Democrat and member of Newtown Township’s board of supervisors in Bucks County, referring to Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the Democrat who has stymied the White House on many issues. Her local Democratic committee interviewed Mr. Lamb but declined to endorse him.Mr. Lamb’s initial victories in Western Pennsylvania had been a model for President Biden’s 2020 race.Amr Alfiky for The New York TimesDemocratic strategists in Pennsylvania said the Lamb campaign’s missteps included running the race as if Mr. Lamb were the front-runner, failing to aggressively attack Mr. Fetterman and focusing almost exclusively on the message that Mr. Lamb was the most electable Democrat, when base voters appeared to want someone more partisan. And they said the campaign placed too much emphasis on winning endorsements from the Democratic establishment, when voters seemed to show that they did not really care.“He had rock star potential — their campaign flittered that away,” said Mike Mikus, a longtime Democratic operative in Pennsylvania and a Lamb supporter. “They ran a campaign that said, ‘Let’s stay above the fray. Everyone’s going to love it.’ But they were behind from the day he got in the race and ran the wrong campaign to close the gap.”Several strategists said the Lamb campaign, with its aversion to going negative and emphasis on endorsements from Democrats statewide, seemed modeled on elections from decades past. One operative invoked Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee who projected reserve and lacked a killer instinct.Abby Nassif-Murphy, Mr. Lamb’s campaign manager, disputed such characterizations. She said Mr. Lamb entered the race as an underdog and grew support that was more substantial than “dubious polls” have suggested.Understand the Pennsylvania Primary ElectionThe crucial swing state will hold its primary on May 17, with key races for a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship.Hard-Liners Gain: Republican voters appear to be rallying behind far-right candidates in two pivotal races, worrying both parties about what that could mean in November.G.O.P. Senate Race: Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator, is making a surprise late surge against big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Democratic Senate Race: Representative Conor Lamb had all the makings of a front-runner. It hasn’t worked out that way.Abortion Battleground: Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states where abortion access hangs in the balance with midterm elections this year.Electability Concerns: Starting with Pennsylvania, the coming weeks will offer a window into the mood of Democratic voters who are deeply worried about a challenging midterm campaign environment.“In nine months, he’s built a broad, diverse coalition of union workers, African Americans, women, men, progressives, moderates, religious leaders, teachers, firefighters, nurses, construction workers — people from all parts of Pennsylvania and all parts of the Democratic Party,” Ms. Nassif-Murphy said in a statement.Long a battleground represented by center-right or center-left statewide officials, Pennsylvania could host a matchup in the fall between far less consensus-minded candidates, especially since the leading Republicans have all professed loyalty to Donald Trump. Kathy Barnette, who has surged in the final days, has actively promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.Mr. Lamb, 37, a native of the Pittsburgh area, boasts of scores of endorsements, including from the mayors of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, officials in the all-important Philadelphia suburbs and members of the state legislature. He has the backing of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, and of labor unions. Multiple Philadelphia officials endorsed him, even though a third candidate in the race, Malcolm Kenyatta, is from the city.Conor Lamb at an event earlier this month in Philadelphia hosted by the National Organization for Women, which endorsed him.Matt Rourke/Associated PressMr. Fetterman has made his lack of endorsements into a kind of badge of honor: He has long disdained glad-handing other elected officials and is an unpopular figure even in the statehouse, where he officially presides over the State Senate.Still, his progressive politics — he was an early backer of Bernie Sanders — and iconoclastic style have made him well-liked by the party base and created an online fund-raising juggernaut. Mr. Fetterman’s approval with Democrats in the state was 67 percent in a recent Franklin & Marshall College Poll, compared with 46 percent for Mr. Lamb.“Fetterman astutely ran a campaign focused on Democratic voters more than Democratic elites,” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist in the state.Mr. Fetterman has stayed ahead in the fund-raising race by soliciting small online donations.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMelinda Wedde, a 37-year-old yoga teacher who is a volunteer door-knocker for the Lamb campaign in the Pittsburgh suburbs, said it was too early to count him out. “He’s out there talking to voters every single day,” Ms. Wedde said. “I think a lot of people are still waiting to make decisions.”One advantage for Mr. Lamb in winning the endorsements from Democratic officials is that when he visited a town or city far from home, local officials often pulled in a crowd to hear him.“People can say ‘establishment officials’ all they want, but these people are the trusted people in their communities, who people elected, and they have to have some sort of favorability amongst the masses,’’ said State Representative Ryan Bizzarro, a Lamb supporter who escorted him on a trip to Erie County on Tuesday.Still, Mr. Lamb’s electability argument, the core of his pitch to party leaders, seems to have left many rank-and-file voters unmoved. And his central-casting image may be working against him.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Trump Criticizes Kathy Barnette as She Surges in Pennsylvania’s G.O.P. Senate Primary

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      A late surge from Kathy Barnette in Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary is officially on former President Trump’s radar.Mr. Trump criticized Ms. Barnette, a conservative author and political commentator, on Thursday and said she was unvetted and unelectable. “Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the general election against the radical left Democrats,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.Ms. Barnett’s momentum in the polls has jeopardized Mr. Trump’s second attempt to influence the primary race, which comes to a close on Tuesday. He endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz, a longtime television host, after his first choice for the seat, Sean Parnell, suspended his campaign in November amid a court battle over the custody of his children.Ms. Barnette’s sudden rise comes as Dr. Oz has been locked in a contentious primary fight with David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive with deep ties to Mr. Trump’s political orbit. A Fox News Poll on Tuesday showed her at 19 percent, behind Mr. McCormick at 20 percent and Dr. Oz at 22 percent.Her climb has surprised many watching the Pennsylvania race — including Mr. Trump, who never seriously considered supporting her before he announced his endorsement of Dr. Oz less than five weeks ago, according to two people familiar with the decision who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.But Ms. Barnette’s candidacy is being taken seriously by the Club for Growth, which endorsed her on Wednesday and announced a $2 million TV ad buy to support her. Her opponents, meanwhile, are scrambling to dig up dirt, like a 2016 tweet in which she claimed then-President Barack Obama was a Muslim. (Mr. Trump repeatedly raised doubts about Mr. Obama’s faith and questioned whether he was a Muslim.)Another sign of the staying power of Ms. Barnette’s surge: Mr. Trump’s criticism of her record allowed for the possibility that she may win. That contrasts sharply with how he has repeatedly attacked Mr. McCormick.“She has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted,” Mr. Trump said in his statement, “but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party — and I will be behind her all the way.” More

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      Hard-Liners Gain in Pennsylvania G.O.P. Races, Worrying Both Parties

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      Doug Mastriano and Kathy Barnette are amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election lie in two key races. Republicans fear they could lose in November. Democrats fear they could win.ERIE, Pa. — Republican voters in Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most hotly contested political battlegrounds, appear to be rallying behind two hard-right candidates for governor and the Senate who are capturing grass-roots anger, railing against the party’s old guard and amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election myth.With less than a week until the state’s primary election on Tuesday, polls show that State Senator Doug Mastriano — one of the state’s central figures in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — has emerged as the clear front-runner in the G.O.P. race for governor. The candidate for Senate, Kathy Barnette, an underfunded conservative commentator who has never held public office, has made a surprise late surge in the contest that had been dominated by two big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Mr. Mastriano has made claims of election fraud a central plank of his bid to lead a state that could be decisive in the 2024 presidential race. Ms. Barnette has a history of incendiary remarks, including repeatedly calling former President Barack Obama an adherent of Islam, which she said should be banned, and derisively writing about “the homosexual agenda.” Both candidates have endorsed each other, forging an important alliance.Now, Republicans are concerned about losing both races in November if primary voters embrace such out-of-the-mainstream candidates.Several Republican rivals to Mr. Mastriano have been gathering on private conference calls in recent days in a last-minute attempt to stop him. All agree that he would be a drag on the party, though Mr. Mastriano has yet to sustain any serious coordinated attacks. Two rivals, State Senator Jake Corman and former Representative Lou Barletta, have set a joint event on Thursday, suggesting that the field might soon consolidate, at least slightly.Democrats harbor their own fear: that the bleak 2022 political environment could nonetheless sweep into power Republicans who, in a less hostile climate, might seem unelectable.Kathy Barnette, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat, at a candidate forum in Newtown, Pa., on Wednesday.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times“Like a lot of Democrats, I’m schizophrenic on this — rooting for the crazy person because it gives us the best chance to win. But at the same time it could give us a crazy senator or a crazy governor, or both,” said Mike Mikus, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.For years, Pennsylvania has been one of the nation’s quintessential swing states, in which the clearest path to power was through the middle ground between the Democratic and Republican parties. This year’s open seats are because Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, is retiring and Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is term-limited.“Pennsylvania is not real good about that extreme on either side,” said Rob Gleason, a former Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman, who was one of Mr. Trump’s chief supporters in the state in 2016 but now worries about Mr. Mastriano in 2022. “No matter what you say, it’s kind of a down-the-middle type of a state.”In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, the position that oversees state elections, meaning whoever wins the governorship will be overseeing the administration of one of the most coveted swing states in the 2024 presidential race.State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor, met with environmental advocates in Philadelphia last month.Matt Rourke/Associated PressFor months, the Senate race has been seen chiefly as a heavyweight bout between Dr. Oz, the television personality, and Mr. McCormick, the former chief executive of the world’s largest hedge fund. They and their allies have combined to spend nearly $40 million on television ads. Ms. Barnette, who ran for the House in 2020 in a Philadelphia suburb and lost by nearly 20 percentage points, had rated somewhere between afterthought and asterisk in the race until recently. But a Fox News poll on Tuesday showed the race a virtual three-way tie.To date, Ms. Barnette’s growth has been almost entirely organic, fueled by her sharp debate performances, conservative media appearances and compelling life story, which she told in her book, “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America.”A “byproduct of a rape,” as she describes herself, when her mother was only 11, Ms. Barnette talks about growing up “on a pig farm” in Alabama without running water and how her success represents the kind of American dream story that is now at risk.In the final week, Ms. Barnette is receiving some crucial institutional backing: the endorsement of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List on Tuesday and a $2 million television advertising blitz funded by the Club for Growth, which is broadcasting her up-from-the-bootstraps message statewide.The Club for Growth, one of the biggest spenders in Republican politics, has feuded recently with Mr. Trump after running ads attacking J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, even after Mr. Trump endorsed him. Mr. Vance won that primary, and Mr. Trump has endorsed Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania.Kathy Barnette, second from left, and Mehmet Oz, third from left, with other Republican candidates for Senate last month at a forum in Camp Hill, Pa.Matt Rourke/Associated PressIn some ways, Ms. Barnette’s candidacy is a test of whether the movement that elected Mr. Trump has taken on a life of its own. “MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Ms. Barnette said in one April debate.Both Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick have wooed Mr. Trump’s supporters, though it has been an awkward fit. Dr. Oz was booed at a Trump rally, Mr. McCormick was rejected by Mr. Trump, and both have faced questions of carpetbagging in a state where they did not recently live full time.Ms. Barnette has offered herself as an authentic and unfiltered version of what the Republican base wants. “Listen, this time, you do not have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils,” she said at another debate.She has also made plain that there will be no pivot to the middle if she makes it to the fall campaign.“There’s been a longstanding tradition that we want to get as moderate of a Republican coming out of the primary — someone palatable — for the general,” she said in an interview on Wednesday night at a candidate forum in eastern Pennsylvania. “In doing this, how has that worked out for them? It hasn’t really worked out very well.”In the governor’s race, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, began running television ads last week featuring a narrator touting Mr. Mastriano’s conservative credentials: “If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.” Mr. Trump has not endorsed in that contest.On Tuesday, Mr. Mastriano campaigned in Erie, Pa., with Jenna Ellis, the former co-counsel for the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.“Doug Mastriano, I like to say, is the Donald Trump of Pennsylvania,” Ms. Ellis said.Mr. Mastriano was a key figure in Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the results in Pennsylvania, a state he lost by 81,000 votes. As a freshman state senator, he held a hearing in November 2020 featuring Ms. Ellis and the Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, visited the White House shortly afterward and remained in close contact with the Trump team. State Senator Doug Mastriano speaking to Trump supporters outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg a few days after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the presidential election in 2020.Julio Cortez/Associated PressHe posted an event on Facebook offering bus rides to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and his campaign reported spending at least $3,000 chartering buses. But he has claimed that he left before the protest turned violent. In Erie, Mr. Mastriano, whose campaign did not respond to requests for comment, defended the rally.“It’s like, God have mercy on your soul if you dare to go and exercise your First Amendment freedom to go to D.C. on Jan. 6?” Mr. Mastriano said. “You did nothing wrong.”Among those quietly vying to coalesce Republicans around an alternative to Mr. Mastriano is Andy Reilly, one of Pennsylvania’s three Republican National Committee members. Mr. Reilly, who has not endorsed in the race, said the Shapiro campaign’s ads had “raised concerns” and sparked discussions.“The fact that the Democrats are running pro-Mastriano ads tells us that they believe he would be the weakest candidate,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime Pennsylvania Republican operative who is running for governor and polling in the low single digits.Interviewed while stumping at a bakery in Erie, Mr. Barletta, a former congressman who beat a Democratic incumbent in 2010, called himself the strongest Mastriano alternative.Lou Barletta, a candidate for governor, with his wife and granddaughter last month in Hazleton, Pa.John Haeger/Standard-Speaker, via Associated Press“It’s been myself and Doug Mastriano” at the top of every poll, Mr. Barletta said. “Now people have to make a decision, and a lot of those undecideds need to look at who do they think has a better chance to beat Josh Shapiro.”Bill McSwain, who served as the U.S. attorney for eastern Pennsylvania during the Trump administration, is also running and has spent as much on television as the rest of the field combined, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. But he is also the only candidate in the race to be attacked by Mr. Trump. “Do not vote for Bill McSwain, a coward, who let our Country down,” Mr. Trump said last month in a statement attacking Mr. McSwain for not sufficiently pressing Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania.Mr. Gleason, the former party chairman, is backing Mr. McSwain anyway, fearful that Mr. Mastriano would lose a general election. “He would be toxic,” he said.Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said he was approached on the House floor this week by colleagues from other states excited that Republicans could pick two such far-right nominees. But he said that he still remembers 2010, when seemingly unelectable Tea Party Republicans won, and then 2016, when Mr. Trump carried Pennsylvania and the presidency.“I should be happy that Republicans seem to be on the way to blowing both of these races,” Mr. Boyle said. But, he added, “I am very nervous that, lo and behold, two Republican extremists would be elected governor and senator.”For her part, Ms. Barnette, appearing this week on the podcast of Stephen Bannon, the former Trump adviser, dismissed Republican concerns that she was “too MAGA” to win in November.“Do these people have a crystal ball?” she asked. “Are they Jesus incarnate? How do they know?”Tracey Tully More

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      Abortion Is Already Animating the Senate Race in Georgia

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      ATLANTA — Democrats are painting a future with limited abortion access as a Republican-manufactured problem, underlined by the Senate’s failure to advance a bill to codify the terms of Roe v. Wade.Georgia Republicans have made the issue their latest line of attack, focusing their fire on freshman Senator Raphael D. Warnock, a Democrat and self-proclaimed “pro-choice pastor.”Legislation that would outlaw abortion after six weeks of pregnancy is almost certain to become law in Georgia if Roe v. Wade is overturned.Mr. Warnock joined his party’s push against abortion restrictions, voting on Wednesday to advance the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have preserved abortion access nationwide. But he is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in upcoming midterm elections, and the Georgia G.O.P. has already seized on his support for the bill, aiming to bolster the argument that he is a “radical” politician who is out of touch with moderate Georgia voters.Republican National Committee spokesman Garrison Douglas called the senator’s vote “disgusting,” adding, “Raphael Warnock’s vote today proves that there is no limit to how far he will go to support Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer’s radical agenda.”The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List also issued a statement attacking the senator, calling him “an extremist.”“Our field team is visiting hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters to educate them about Warnock’s record and ensure he is held accountable on election night,” the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in the statement.Mr. Warnock has made his support for abortion access clear since his first campaign, saying that he believes that abortion is a decision a mother and doctor should make. Conservatives in Georgia and beyond have condemned his position, saying he cannot be in favor of abortion and also claim to be a religious leader as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 2020, more than two dozen church leaders in the state, a majority of whom were also Black, issued a public statement condemning his stance and asking him to reconsider.The G.O.P. front-runner for Senate, former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker, has taken a staunchly anti-abortion stance, saying he believes the procedure should be illegal even in cases of rape or incest. In a survey that he filled out for the anti-abortion group Georgia Life Alliance, he said he would “vote for any legislation which protects the sanctity of human life, even if it is not perfect.”State Democrats have amplified Mr. Walker’s stance and that of Republicans up and down the G.O.P. ticket ahead of the May 24 primary elections, saying their anti-abortion rhetoric will only alienate Georgia voters. A poll conducted in January by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that more than two-thirds of Georgians support abortion access. More

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      Trump, the Primaries and the ‘Populism of Resentment’ Shaping the G.O.P.

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      May is chock-full of primary elections, and they are starting to provide a picture of how deep the G.O.P. is entrenched in Trumpism. J.D. Vance, the 37-year-old venture capitalist and author of the acclaimed memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” won the Republican Senate primary in Ohio — with the endorsement of Donald Trump. The rise of Vance paints a telling portrait of how the G.O.P. is evolving in its appeal to its conservative base. Vance eagerly sought Trump’s endorsement and praise. Does it mean that the party is becoming a “populism of tribal loyalty,” as suggested by one of today’s guests?[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Today on “The Argument,” host Jane Coaston wants to know what this month’s Republican primary elections can actually tell us about the future of the G.O.P. and if it signals more Trump in 2024. She is joined two conservative writers, David French and Christopher Caldwell.French is a senior editor of “The Dispatch” and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Caldwell is a contributing writer for New York Times Opinion. “I don’t think anyone disputes that there’s a wide open lane for populist incitement,” French says. “I think the issue with J.D. Vance and the issue with the Republican Party in general is this move that says, we’re going to indulge it. We’re going to stoke it.”Mentioned in this episode:“The Decline of Ohio and the Rise of J.D. Vance” by Christopher Caldwell in The New York Times“What if There Is No Such Thing as ‘Trumpism’?” by Jane Coaston in The National Review(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThoughts? Email us at argument@nytimes.com or leave us a voice mail message at (347) 915-4324. We want to hear what you’re arguing about with your family, your friends and your frenemies. (We may use excerpts from your message in a future episode.)By leaving us a message, you are agreeing to be governed by our reader submission terms and agreeing that we may use and allow others to use your name, voice and message.“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez and Vishakha Darbha. Edited by Alison Bruzek and Anabel Bacon. With original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta with editorial support from Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. More

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      Club for Growth Starts Ad Blitz for Kathy Barnette in Pennsylvania Senate Primary

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      After months of a bruising television ad war between Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick and their allies, the relatively shoestring campaign of Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator showing surprising strength in the polls, will receive a late boost in the Republican primary for Senate in Pennsylvania.The Club for Growth, the pro-business and anti-tax group, began booking television ads on Tuesday on behalf of Ms. Barnette worth $2 million, according to AdImpact, the ad-tracking firm. That sum is more than 10 times what Ms. Barnette’s campaign had spent in total on television to date, and the total pro-Barnette reservations could continue to grow.Super PACs backing Mr. McCormick, Dr. Oz and their campaigns have already spent or reserved $40 million in the primary.Despite that disparity, Ms. Barnette, author of the book “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America,” is running neck and neck with Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick after strong debate performances turned heads.A Fox News Poll on Tuesday showed her at 19 percent, behind Mr. McCormick at 20 percent and Dr. Oz at 22 percent — within the margin of error.The new ad has Ms. Barnette narrating her impoverished upbringing on “a pig farm in Alabama” and saying how “this country allowed a little Black girl to claw her way from underneath a rock,” while warning of a disappearing American dream.The ad buy took the Barnette team by surprise.“Don’t know anything about it,” Bob Gillies, Ms. Barnette’s campaign manager, said of it on Tuesday.Ms. Barnette has the backing of State Senator Doug Mastriano, who has been the front-runner in the Republican primary for governor, and she has run an unabashedly hard-right campaign, attacking her better-funded rivals as “globalists” on the debate stage and questioning their commitment to gun rights and the anti-abortion movement.“I am the byproduct of a rape,” she said in one debate, challenging Dr. Oz about his past positions on abortion. “My mother was 11 years old when I was conceived. My father was 21. I was not just a lump of cells.”The Club for Growth has not formally endorsed Ms. Barnette, which makes the group’s late intervention all the more politically intriguing. The group did not respond to requests for comment.The group noisily sparred with former President Donald J. Trump in the Ohio Senate primary. The Club for Growth, which backed Josh Mandel, continued to attack J.D. Vance, the eventual winner, even after Mr. Vance won Mr. Trump’s endorsement.Its continued assault on Mr. Vance angered both Mr. Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., who attacked the Club for Growth on the campaign trail. And Mr. Vance made clear he was still bitter about all the attacks, calling out the Club by name in his victory speech even as he praised his rivals for their efforts.The Club for Growth and Mr. Trump are allied in another Senate race next Tuesday, in North Carolina, where both are backing Representative Ted Budd against former Gov. Pat McCrory. More