It’s not that Barnette and her supporters don’t still support the former President. They do, and many of her backers remain Trump’s most fervent defenders. But when the former President endorsed celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz in the Republican Senate primary, it opened a pathway for Barnette to run further to the right, and more in line with the “MAGA movement” than any of her primary opponents.
“As much as people support Trump, hey, he ain’t God,” said Gary Smith, chair for the Constitutional Republicans of Western Pennsylvania in Jefferson County who personally plans to vote for Barnette. “He made a mistake. I think it is one of the worst mistakes he has made in his endorsements because Oz is everything we are not.”…
It’s a strategy Barnette has had for months. Smith recalled that Barnette told him back in October 2021 that her strategy was to embrace Trump and fill in the gap once the top candidates bludgeon each other with negative ads.
“She told me, ‘I am going to let the top three just beat each other up and them I am going slide in and win,'” Smith recalled. “And I think this girl is going to slide right in like this Kentucky Derby winner just did. It’s going to be close… but I think she is going to pull it off.”
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