The same traits that make Mehmet Oz a hard sell in blue-collar central and western Pennsylvania make him an easier sell in the suburbs.
I’ve been as dismissive about Mehmet Oz’s chances in the U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania as anybody, but I would be foolish to ignore that the polling in the Keystone State this month has pointed to an increasingly closer race. Democrat John Fetterman’s biggest lead this month was seven percentage points in the Marist poll, and the smallest was two points in the Trafalgar Group poll.
On paper, there are two ways for a Republican to win a statewide race in Pennsylvania; Donald Trump and Pat Toomey demonstrated them simultaneously in 2016. After that election, Jon Lerner, the lead strategist for Toomey’s campaign, walked NR readers through the two approaches. In suburban Chester County, Toomey performed twelve points better than Trump, winning the county by three points as Trump lost it by nine. In Cambria County — more rural, working-class, and home to some of pork barrel John Murtha’s old congressional district — Toomey won by 24 points, while Trump ran up a huge margin of 38 points over Hillary Clinton.
“Trump won Pennsylvania without Chester, just as he won nationally without Colorado or Virginia,” Lerner wrote. “Toomey won Pennsylvania by carrying Chester, while underperforming relative to Trump in Cambria. These counties fit a pattern. Toomey outpolled Trump by seven to ten points in the other three suburban counties outside Philadelphia and by 29,000 votes in the city of Philadelphia, while Trump significantly outpolled Toomey in a dozen smaller, rural counties.”
Oz could try to run up a large margin in smaller, rural areas that are trending Republican. The most recent survey in the state, the Fox News poll that John wrote about earlier, shows Oz leading among rural voters, 49 percent to 38 percent. But the daytime-talk-show host who got his big break from Oprah doesn’t seem like the most natural persona to appeal to the hard-drinking, union-dues-paying, blue-collar workers of Fulton County, Bedford County, and the rest of the central part of the state. And the giant, tattooed, sweatshirt-wearing moose John Fetterman probably enjoys unique advantages in terms of playing to those demographics. But in that Fox News poll, Fetterman leads among suburban voters 53 percent to 33 percent.
(By the way, in that Fox poll, 82 percent of registered voters described themselves as “certain to vote,” which seems . . . high.)
For all his other challenges, the suburbs of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties should be low-hanging fruit for Oz. He’s the child of immigrants, who went to Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, and became “the most accomplished 35-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon in the country,” in the words of the New York Times. His resume shines:
Harvard graduate, magna cum laude; medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was class chairman and school president and also managed to squeeze in an M.B.A. from Wharton. During his residency at Columbia-Presbyterian he won the prestigious Blakemore research award four times. He holds a patent for a solution that preserves transplant organs and has two more patents pending, including one for an aortic valve that can be implanted without open-heart surgery. He’s contributed chapters to eight books, written 56 abstracts and 135 papers and performs about 250 operations a year.
The same traits that make Oz a hard sell to those blue-collar populists in central and western Pennsylvania should make him an easier sell to the minivan-driving white-collar dads and soccer moms of the suburbs. Oz is the sensible, soft-spoken smart guy who’s going to make sure you can still afford your groceries and fill up your tank, protect your 401(k), and keep violent criminals behind bars, and he won’t treat you, the taxpayer, as an endless piggy bank to be emptied whenever the government wants to spend more. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce just endorsed Oz; in the Philadelphia ad market, Oz should be touting himself as Pat Toomey 2.0.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Senior Political Strategist Ashlee Rich Stephenson. “Dr. Oz’s commitment to free enterprise and pro-growth policies is impressive and is a stark contrast to the policy views of his opponent, John Fetterman. There is no greater divergence on issues than in this election here in the Keystone State. Fetterman would raise taxes, has flip flopped on his energy position, and would ruthlessly work to drop the filibuster. Dr. Oz, on the other hand, will support and defend Pennsylvanians by not raising taxes a single dime, advancing America’s energy independence, and standing in defense of the filibuster to be sure bipartisanship remains in the U.S. Senate. The U.S. Chamber is proud to endorse pro-business champion Dr. Oz in his campaign for U.S. Senate, and we look forward to working with him in the next Congress.”
Oh, don’t forget those suburban counties around Philadelphia have a decent number of Trump voters. In 2020, against “Scranton” Joe Biden, Trump won 47.2 percent in Bucks County, 40.8 percent in Chester County, 36.1 percent in Delaware County, and 36 percent in Montgomery County. Those latter three may not seem all that impressive, but they added up to 619,000 — almost 19 percent — of Trump’s 3.3 million votes.
Ideally, Oz would use a hybrid of the Trump and Toomey strategies — tout his Trump endorsement in Pennsylvania’s deep-red counties, running up his margin as high as possible there, and then play the sensible, smart, commonsense accomplished doctor in the Philadelphia suburban counties, who will continue Toomey’s approach in the Senate.
Remember, Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by just 80,555 votes, or roughly 1.1 percent. This state isn’t quite as blue as it is commonly perceived.