Trafalgar has new polls out in the Pennsylvania Republican primaries, which will be held next Tuesday. The Senate poll is not far from a three-way dead heat, with Dr. Oz at 24.5 percent, Kathy Barnette at 23.2 percent, and Dave McCormick at 21.6 percent, with 15 percent undecided and the other candidates in single digits. The governor’s race poll has Doug Mastriano with a ten-point lead, 27.6 percent to Lou Barletta’s 17.6 percent, with Dave White at 15.1 percent, William McSwain at 14.4 percent, 11.3 percent undecided, and four candidates in single digits. The RCP average in the Senate race has Oz 23.3, Barnette 21.0, and McCormick 20.3.
Pennsylvania Republicans are alarmed, but apparently too disunited to do anything. Salena Zito is as diligent and plugged-in a reporter on the Pennsylvania beat as you will find, and she’s vexed. She warns that Mastriano could be a disaster:
If Mastriano wins the Republican primary in Pennsylvania, he may well cost Republicans the Senate race that will share the ballot this fall, a couple of congressional races, and perhaps even majorities in the state House and state Senate. That would be a pretty remarkable feat in a year when Republicans are expected to succeed throughout the country. Mastriano is that bad. Yet everywhere you go across rural Pennsylvania, there are Mastriano campaign signs for governor…Mastriano is known for wearing spurs everywhere he goes and giving elaborate and often uncomfortable speeches. This week, he became agitated and abruptly ended a podcast interview when asked about his attendance at a QAnon-linked event in Gettysburg, as well as the rally he attended just before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack subpoenaed him in March about his involvement.
Barnette has been running as something of a ticket with Mastriano, but she is potentially more interesting than that, a military veteran, a black woman, and a pro-lifer who notes that she owes her existence to her mother — then eleven years old — being raped and yet raising her. Then, there’s the Club for Growth’s powerful ad blitz behind her:
NEW: The Club for Growth’s new ad is a pure pro-Barnette biographical spot.
Fox News poll had her inside margin of error of Oz and McCormick on Tuesday. https://t.co/630wOAIeSm pic.twitter.com/nvl3oUzmmN
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) May 11, 2022
The moment would seem to favor Barnette. Yet, Zito’s effort to talk to her details a behind-the-scenes record of a campaign blowing off a reporter who has been sincere in her efforts to get the basics of the candidate’s biography and hear her side of the story.