Senate Candidates

FEATURE

Senate Candidates

By Larry Light

Dr. Michael DellaVecchia is concluding his tenure as the 171st president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED).

You will make a serious mistake if you underestimate the importance of the 2022 US Senate primary and general elections in Pennsylvania. Voters in those elections will seek to fill the seat being vacated by Senator Pat Toomey (R). Political strategists for both parties are certainly not falling into that trap. By all accounts the race to win the open seat in Pennsylvania has been identified as ground zero in this election cycle. In both parties, the goal must be to choose the most electable candidate for the statewide general election while navigating the difficult waters of party politics in the primary.

The most obvious reason for the high-profile status is that functional and political control of the US Senate is at stake. With the Senate currently split 50-50 and the majority dependent on the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris (D) is constitutionally the presiding officer, the 2022 election cycle looms as both contentious and pivotal.

The contest in Pennsylvania, one of only a handful of Senate races nationwide viewed as competitive, garners even more notoriety because Pennsylvania is correctly regarded as a swing state. A Democratic winner will “swing” the seat from the Republican column to Democratic column and a Republican victory may very well “swing” control of the Senate in favor of that party. This in a state where Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 President election reversed the win by Republican Donald Trump in 2016. So the high profile status is well deserved.

Both parties have competitive primaries with several candidates vying for a landmark win. Legal challenges and court rulings will have a telling effect on the congressional and state legislative races on voters’ ballots because of reapportionment, but those are not an issue in a US Senate race. Consequently, the Senate contest will stand above the fray in 2022 Pennsylvania politics

Since neither statewide party decided to make an endorsement in their Senate primary, the multiple candidates crisscrossing the Commonwealth have been aggressively raising money, making high- priced media buys and attacking not only their primary opponents but leading candidates in the other party. It is truly a turbulent campaign, and it has been challenging for the candidates and their campaign operatives to raise funds, spread their message, demonstrate their strength in polls and collect commitments of support prior to the May 17th primary.

With so much at stake the individual candidates are often the subject of intense interest, especially in the media. Surprisingly, in a party specific primary election one leading candidate, Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, is also attracting attenttion from the early leader in the other party race, Democrat John Fetterman. Dr. Oz, a physician who morphed his surgical career into a daytime television personality, is making heavy television ad buys and holding voter engagement sessions designed like a talk show. His strategy is to build respect in the polls by taking advantage of his widespread name recognition. Just weeks before the election, though, the highest polling Republican candidate is David McCormick, a hedge fund executive who is rebuilding his roots in the state. Meanwhile Fetterman, the state’s Lt. Governor but an acknowledged party outsider, has continued to campaign in his non-traditional work clothes while aggressively meeting with voters in what he says are “forgotten” areas and attacking GOP candidates as he leads the Democratic polling. He points to Super PACs supporting the wealthy GOP candidates who are also investing significant personal funds to back their campaigns.

There are a few unique situations that will factor into the primary cycle. Lt. Gov. Fetterman and Congressman Conor Lamb on the Democratic ballot are both from Allegheny County. The other viable candidate is State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta from Philadelphia. The unknown is whether one of the two western PA candidates can earn enough votes to defeat both the other western PA candidate and the eastern PA candidate. Republicans Dr. Oz and David McCormick are both transplants from out of state who have migrated to the southeastern part of the state. Also on the Republican ballot will be Carla Sands, a former ambassador to Denmark, activist and commentator Kathy Barnett and businessman Jeff Bartos. Political pundits are not surprised that even with millions spent on advertising before the start of 2022, the early leader in polling was “undecided.”

Voters would be well advised to not just show up on May 17th without making some attempt to review candidate backgrounds and policy positions before deciding on their candidate of choice. In the modern era they can do that by wading through websites, media coverage, texts and emails.

The usual script in a primary election campaign places most candidates in accord with their own party primary opponents on the major policy issues, setting the stage for the partisan-oriented November mid-term elections. Topics like fracking, abortion, voting rights, Senate filibusters, trade with China, border security, Covid 19 treatments, inflation, gas prices, health care and gun control provide a wealth of contentious issues for future debates.

One aspect of this election cycle is that there remains the possibility that Pennsylvania voters will elect a US Senator who is African American (Kenyatta), or a woman (Clark) or a physician (Oz). Any one of those would be a historic first. • Larry Light retired from PAMED as the Senior Vice President for Physician and Political Advocacy.