Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, Leigh Chapman, said in a statement that the results between the top two candidates, television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and businessman Dave McCormick, are within the margin to initiate a mandatory recount under state law.
Current totals show Oz, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, leading McCormick by less than 1,000 votes out of more than 1.3 million votes cast in the seven-person GOP primary, or about 0.1 percentage points. Pennsylvania launches mandatory recounts when the top two candidates are separated by 0.5 percentage points or less unless the candidates waive that right.
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McCormick’s campaign indicated it intended to seek the recount. Counties must complete their recounts by June 7.
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The primary winner will face Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in November’s general election. Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat, soon to be vacated by the retiring Sen. Pat Toomey, is a key part of Republicans’ efforts to win a Senate majority. Meanwhile, the seat could be the Democrats’ best pickup opportunity to increase their majority in the upper chamber. Election analysts have ranked the race a toss-up.
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The cutthroat competition between Oz and McCormick continued as results in the Republican primary race trickled in.
McCormick on Monday filed a case to confirm that counties do not reject some mail-in ballots that arrived on time but did not have dates handwritten on the envelopes. The Republican Party has sided with Oz in opposing McCormick’s effort.
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While votes were still being tallied, Trump wrote on social media that Oz “should declare victory,” claiming it “makes it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they ‘just happened to find.’”
Trump tried to do that in the 2020 presidential election race, which he nevertheless lost to President Joe Biden. The former President claimed that legitimately cast mail-in ballots, which many states counted more slowly than usual due to an influx during the coronavirus pandemic, were rife with fraud.
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The final winner of the Republican primary will compete in the general election against Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who was projected to win the state’s Democratic Senate primary by a wide margin.
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The Senate race in the swing state could prove to be the most pivotal fight of the midterms. Democrats are trying to keep control of the Senate, which is evenly split between 50 Republicans and the 50 senators who caucus with Democrats.
The Pennsylvania seat, which is being left by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey, may offer Democrats’ best chance to flip a red seat blue.
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