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On Saturday, President Trump congratulated Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz on a presumptive victory in the primary election in a statement shared on Truth Social.
Trump said that Oz had “rightfully just declared himself the winner of the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate (Pennsylvania).”
“He will go on to defeat his Radical Left opponent and be a great Senator for the Commonwealth, and the USA!” Trump added.
Pennsylvania’s primary election day was held on May 17. However, the state has yet to declare an official winner in the Senate race, due to the supposed lengthy process of counting mail-in ballots.
Additionally, Politico reported that Oz was leading his GOP challenger, David McCormick, by just .07 percent of the vote, triggering an automatic recount.
Trump eviscerated the unending process of counting ballots over the course of days and weeks following the primary election. “Pennsylvania’s ‘count’ could be a long time coming,” he warned in a statement posted to Truth Social. “It is all screwed up…Mail-In Ballots are a disaster for America. Allows large scale, systemic cheating.”
Oz stated that he was blessed to have earned “the presumptive Republican nomination” for the U.S. Senate in a video released on Friday. “It’s time to unite,” he wrote on Twitter. “I want to hear your ideas and make this country’s future as bright as it has ever been. With more freedom, less government, and by empowering our people, America’s light will shine better than ever.”
According to Politico, McCormick and Oz are also dueling over approximately 860 absentee and mail-in ballots that do not include handwritten dates on their envelopes. McCormick has subsequently filed a lawsuit to try and count the ballots anyway.
Oz posted a statement in response to this move by McCormick’s legal team, sharing that “Dr. Mehmet Oz continues to respectfully allow Pennsylvania’s vote-counting process to take place and puts his faith in the Republican voters who we believe have chosen him as their nominee. That is why our campaign will oppose the McCormick legal team’s request that election boards ignore both Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court and state election law and accept legally rejected ballots.”
