The “ultra-MAGA” candidate who worries Trump

(New York) Kathy Barnette, candidate for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania, is not the first personality from the Republican Party whose Mike Mikus, unwavering Democrat, wishes victory during a primary.

“In 2016, I thought the best thing that could happen to the Democratic Party was for Donald Trump to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. And we were stuck with him for four years as president of the United States,” the Pittsburgh-area political adviser recalled in a phone interview.

“There are no guarantees in this business. I have learned to be a little more careful in what I wish for, but I still wish for her to win the primary,” he added.

It would be the electoral surprise of the year. Two weeks ago, no one could have predicted that Kathy Barnette, a 50-year-old African-American commentator, would win this Republican primary for the Pennsylvania senatorial election on Tuesday.

However, the height of irony, Donald Trump today comes to the same conclusion as Mike Mikus about this candidate accused of homophobia and Islamophobia, among others.

“Kathy Barnette can never win the general election against the radical left Democrats,” said the former president last week, who supports another candidate in the running, in this case Mehmet Oz, a political neophyte who must his stardom on his eponymous television show.

According to the latest polls, the D^r Oz holds a narrow lead over Kathy Barnette, who has made a spectacular comeback since the beginning of the month, and David McCormick, ex-CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund.

Before exploring the reasons why a Democrat like Mike Mikus and a Republican like Donald Trump doubt this woman, a word first on the basis of her popularity.

Catapulted by abortion

“I am the by-product of a rape. My mother was 11 when I was conceived. In the world the left desires, I would never have been born. We need strong leaders to lead our nation through these difficult discussions. »

In a tweet published on May 3, Kathy Barnette used these words to present a viral video where she and her mother recount the circumstances of her birth in a remote corner of Alabama.

This slick video was released the day after news site Politico’s explosive exclusivity regarding the possible overturning of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade.

According to most analysts, the abortion issue catapulted Kathy Barnette. Pennsylvania may have preferred Joe Biden to Donald Trump in 2020, but it has a good number of very conservative voters.

And, obviously, many of them were touched by Kathy Barnette’s personal story and her opposition to abortion in all circumstances.

The candidate also benefited from her alliance with State Senator Doug Mastriano. The latter is ahead of all his competitors in the Republican primary for the election to the post of governor of Pennsylvania.

Besides a staunch opposition to abortion, Mastriano shares with Barnette a complete buy-in to Donald Trump’s big lie about the “stealing” of the 2020 presidential election.

The two were also in Washington on January 6, 2021, the day of the attack on the Capitol. Barnette walked in the company of members of the extremist group Proud Boys, according to photos published Monday by NBC News. Mastriano, for his part, claims to have left Washington before the uprising.

His potential victory in the Republican primary for governor of Pennsylvania is also making Democrats salivate.

Obama, this “Muslim”

But Pennsylvania’s senatorial election is getting the most attention outside of the state’s borders. It offers Democrats one of their best opportunities to win a Republican seat in the Senate, from which the current holder, Pat Toomey, has chosen to step down.

And it features a candidate who made intolerant remarks on social networks or on the air at the time when she hosted a radio show and collaborated with Fox News.

She has already called Barack Obama a “Muslim” or “ugly gay Muslim”, and advocated the banning of Islam in the United States.

“If you loved freedom, Islam must NOT be allowed to thrive under any circumstances,” she tweeted in 2014.

“Two men sleeping together, two men holding hands, two men caressing each other, that’s not normal,” she said in 2015.

“Pedophilia is the cornerstone of Islam,” she tweeted the same year.

Today, Kathy Barnette defends herself by denying having made these remarks or by swearing that they were not representative of her person.

Questions have also been raised about her military and professional background (she says she served in the army as a reservist and taught at college).

“Kathy is going to be in a lot of trouble,” Donald Trump said last Thursday evening, remaining vague about what he blames her for.

Will these controversies change the vote of Republican voters who are wary of the media reporting on them? If they do not prevent Barnette from winning the Republican primary, it will be necessary to remember a declaration by Steve Bannon, ex-strategist of Donald Trump.

“I keep telling people that the president is nowhere near as politically right-wing as some parts of this populist movement of which Kathy Barnette is a manifestation,” he said in his podcast last Thursday.

“It’s MAGA versus ultra-MAGA in Pennsylvania,” he added, referring to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan (Make America Great Again).

This fight delights Mike Mikus, the Democratic consultant.

“A Barnette win would really give us a good chance,” he said.