Since just days after winning the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz has “gone dark,” disappearing from television airwaves.
“This is not the general election kickoff in a pivotal Senate race that Republicans were hoping for,” Politico reports, as Lt. Governor John Fetterman, who won the Democratic nomination for that Senate seat, “burnishes his brand on TV as a political outsider, and paints Oz as a carpetbagger from New Jersey.”
Dr. Oz, as he is called on TV, is a multi-millionaire reportedly worth between $100 million and $500 million. A household name, he should have no trouble attracting the best campaign experts, and massive endorsements from top Republicans yet appears to have done neither – aside from Donald Trump.
And it’s angering grassroots Republican operatives.
Dr. Oz “came in a distant third in my county, so I called them up and said, ‘You need to talk to our people to change their mind and our mind and I’ll help you do that,’” Huntingdon County Republican Party chair Arnie McClure told Politico. “And I don’t even hear back. What the hell?”
Fetterman, who suffered a stroke days before winning the nomination, has his own campaign challenges.
“A Suffolk University/USA Today Network poll in early June found that 54 percent of likely voters in the state disapprove of Joe Biden’s job performance, a weight that will be a challenge for Fetterman to shake off. Fetterman also hasn’t announced when he will return to the trail, and it is not yet clear how robustly he will be able to campaign once he does.”
With just four months to go, Fetterman is currently ahead.
“Oz’s unfavorable rating is 50 percent, while 28 percent view him favorably, according to the Suffolk poll. Fetterman’s favorable-unfavorable rating, by contrast, is 45-27. The same survey showed Fetterman ahead of Oz in a head-to-head race by nine points.”