Former United States President Donald Trump and his allies have been rattled just days before Pennsylvania's primary elections due to a late surge from Kathy Barnette, a relatively unknown figure in the GOP that has a long history of bigoted statements against gays and Muslims.
The situation comes as multiple polls this week have shown that Barnette was within striking distance for the nomination to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. The lawmaker is a conservative commentator who moved to the state roughly eight years ago. She previously lost in a bid for a Philadelphia-area House seat in 2020.
Surging Kathy Barnette
Barnette also lost the safe Democratic seat by 20 points, an incident that she said was due to voter fraud. The Republican's surge comes as she has spent only a fraction of what her rivals have on television ads.
It was thanks to a confluence of events, such as late endorsements, an alliance with the gubernatorial frontrunner, a lack of enthusiasm for other options, and a viral ad about her mother's decision not to have an abortion after being raped at 11 years old, all helped push her up, as per Yahoo News.
Barnette's surge has also opened her up to new scrutinies, such as questions about her biography, her embrace of conspiracy theories, and her incendiary comments regarding Islam, which she once said should be banned in the United States. Her explosive surge threatens to make next Tuesday the second straight week that a Trump-backed candidate lost a high-profile Republican primary.
A super PAC that is backing one of Barnette's opponents released an ad that called her, who would be Pennsylvania's first Black senator if elected, "Crazy Kathy." Furthermore, her rivals' allies are circulating old tweets, including one where she was critical of Trump.
According to NBC News, on Thursday, Trump took a piece of the action and reiterated his support for TV doctor Mehmet Oz's candidacy while criticizing Barnette. The former president's actions and words signify that the threat against him and his allies was real. However, the Republican businessman still expressed a willingness to support Barnette if she does win the primary.
History of Bigoted Statements
"Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the General Election against the Radical Left Democrats. She has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted, but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party, and I will be behind her all the way," said former President Trump.
The surging Republican's history of bigoted statements includes spreading the false conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama is a Muslim. In 2015, a video uploaded on YouTube showed Barnette forcefully arguing that it was okay to discriminate against Muslims and compared rejecting Islam to rejecting Hitler's or Stalin's worldviews.
She also had a radio show in which her comments said that accepting homosexuality would lead to the acceptance of incest and pedophilia. In one post, she wrote that a transgender person is considered to be "deformed" and "demonic," CNN reported.
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