In the last days of the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, a candidate with a fraction of the resources of the two front-runners emerges as a possibility, sparking assaults from both sides.Kathy Barnette, an Army Reserve veteran and commentator, is on the rise in part as a result of her ascent from poverty, which included being the victim of sexual assault, which she has stated fueled her adamant opposition to abortion. She's also benefited from two major conservative groups endorsing her in the final weeks of the primary race.Her ascendancy has sparked fresh levels of criticism from her opponents, including the party's most powerful national figure, Donald Trump. If Ms. Barnette is nominated to succeed retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey, the former president, who is backing celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz, has predicted that she will lose in the fall.
Limited polling indicates a close GOP contest, with Ms. Barnette, Mr. Oz, and former hedge fund investor David McCormick all potentially within striking distance of a victory on Tuesday, when the Pennsylvania primary will be the most high-profile of five states from coast to coast.
With seven Republicans running for Senate in Pennsylvania, the winner is unlikely to require a majority. The winner will face the Democratic nominee—most likely Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, according to polls and fundraising—in a November election that will determine control of the chamber.
According to data from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, more than $51 million had been spent on advertising on the Republican side alone by the final weekend of the campaign. Nearly four out of every ten broadcasts had a negative tone.
"People who never call are asking who they should vote for," Doug McLinko, a Bradford County commissioner and local Republican Party official in northern Pennsylvania, said.
Mr. McLinko said he has rarely seen conservatives in such a state of perplexity and indecision as he is seeing now. "Spending this much money to criticize each other isn't good because it has confused the people," he said. "I've never seen anything like this."
Mr. McCormick's supporters began an attack commercial against Ms. Barnette on Friday. The group Honor Pennsylvania, which is largely backed by hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin, is utilizing the opportunity to cast doubt on her conservative credentials.
"How well do we know Kathy Barnette?" the ad inquires "She backed George Floyd's protest while opposing Trump."
A call for comment from Ms. Barnette's campaign went unanswered.
Ms. Barnette would be the first Republican Black woman elected to the Senate if she is elected. While campaigning, she questioned her more well-funded opponents' devotion to anti-abortion and other conservative causes.She claimed in one debate, "I am the byproduct of a rape," as she chastised Mr. Oz for previous pro-abortion remarks. "I was born when my mother was eleven years old." My father was only twenty-one years old at the time. "I wasn't only a collection of cells."
Ms. Barnette claims she grew up on a pig farm without running water in Alabama. She has a history of making inflammatory statements, including erroneously alleging that then-President Barack Obama was a Muslim and espousing anti-gay sentiments.
Ms. Barnette, who lives outside Philadelphia and is in her early 50s, has been a Republican since at least 2015. She has appeared as a commentator on Fox News, the cable channel owned by Fox Corp., which also owns News Corp., the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.
Ms. Barnette made a late surge in a contest that had been dominated by Messrs. Oz and McCormick, according to a Fox News survey released this week. Ms. Barnette has campaigned in relative obscurity, while the two have used their own wealth and the fortunes of others to attack each other with disparaging advertising.
According to the Fox poll, nearly half of Republican voters had never heard of her and couldn't say whether they liked or disliked her. Mr. McCormick received a quarter of the vote, while Mr. Oz received over half.
Senator Doug Mastriano, the front-runner in the crowded Republican governor's race, has endorsed Ms. Barnette. Mr. Mastriano, who marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the 2020 election results, has made unsubstantiated charges of widespread election fraud a core element of his campaign to govern a state that President Biden won by just over 1% in 2020.
Mr. Mastriano's support has aided Ms. Barnette in the state's rural districts, according to Jeff Becker, a GOP strategist who is not associated with any of the Senate campaigns. In a state where the political divide is razor-thin, he continued, some Republicans are skeptical that either of those two candidates can win a general election.
"With Mastriano and Kathy Barnette at the head of the ticket, a lot of establishment Republicans are scared," Mr. Becker said.
In a statement released Thursday regarding the Senate race, Mr. Trump, who endorsed Mr. Mastriano for governor on Saturday, sounded like one of the establishment Republicans.
"Against the radical left Democrats, Kathy Barnette will never be able to win a general election," he predicted. "She has a lot of things in her past that haven't been fully explained or vetted, but if she can do that, she'll have a bright future in the Republican Party—and I'll be there with her every step of the way."
"The only person who can easily defeat the deranged, wild Democrat in Pennsylvania is Dr. Oz," Mr. Trump added. Any vote in the primary for anyone else is a vote against success in the general election."
The election in Pennsylvania is the latest test of Mr. Trump's hold on the Republican base during a nomination season in which he has largely won in the first few weeks. His frequent candidate endorsements have kept him engaged in the political debate in the United States in the run-up to what he has hinted will be another presidential candidacy in 2024.
Mr. Trump's supporters, including some who booed or turned their backs when the surgeon spoke at a recent Trump event, have pledged their allegiance to him.
During the last days of the race, the Club for Growth Action, a conservative super PAC, stepped in to promote Ms. Barnette and placed a $2 million ad order in her favor. The outside group's spending is more than ten times what Ms. Barnette's own campaign has spent on commercials.
The Pennsylvania Senate race is the second high-profile primary in which the super PAC, one of the most powerful donors in Republican politics, is not backing Mr. Trump's chosen candidate. In Ohio, the group backed J.D. Vance, who was defeated by Trump's nominee.
Ms. Barnette, who ran for the US House of Representatives unsuccessfully in 2020, had late support from the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List.
On the Democratic side, polling shows Mr. Fetterman leading U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb and a few other candidates in the contest to succeed Mr. Toomey. Mr. Fetterman is a member of the party's progressive side, but Mr. Lamb is a former prosecutor with union support and a political moderate reputation.
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