Dr Mehmet Oz may be running for the Senate, but he's also running from voters.
The celebrity doctor running as a Republican for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat was confronted during a campaign stop in the Keystone State by a voter asking about women's reproductive rights and inflation.
In a video posted by the political activist group Indivisible: Mayday, Dr Oz can be seen during a meet-and-greet with Pennsylvania voters before running away when they begin to ask him questions. The video has garnered substantial attention on social media by critics of the doctor.
The video begins when the individual filming asks Dr Oz about inflation.
Dr Oz and his team, who are within 10 feet of the individual filming, ignore the question and exit the building.
"Women's rights are on the ballot? Do you care?" the voter asks. She is again met by silence from Dr Oz, but she continues regardless. "Pennsylvania's women care."
The voter then demanded the Republican answer her questions.
"Women want to hear your answers. We're voters, Dr Oz," she said. "Are you going to ignore your constituents?"
The doctor continued walking down the street, without turning to engage with the voter.
"We're possible constituents Dr Oz, you're ignoring us," she called out after him.
Dr Oz has become something of a punching bag on major social media platforms. His opponent, Democrat John Fetterman, has frequently accused the celebrity doctor of being a carpetbagger from New Jersey and makes it a point to discuss his opponent's 10 owned properties as often as possible. But it's not just effective attacking from Mr Fetterman that's hurting Dr Oz online, it's the doctor's own social media presence.
The doctor's team has run seemingly counter-productive attack ads, including one that tried to scare Midwesterners by suggesting Mr Fetterman was a pot smoking socialist who wanted everyone in the country to have healthcare, and another that highlighted the Democrat's fondness for Senator Bernie Sanders.
On mainstream social media platforms, where — outside of perhaps Facebook — users tend to have more liberal ideological leanings, users frequently said Dr Oz's ads made them like Mr Fetterman even more.
Dr Oz and his team then tried to focus on inflation and "dinner table" issues, like food costs. So they sent Dr Oz to the grocery store to film a disastrous ad in which the doctor bungles the name of the grocery store, explains he's shopping for his wife's crudite, and gawks at generally reasonable prices for fresh vegetables before blaming the entire situation on Joe Biden.
He was again lampooned online.
A recent Fox News poll suggested the doctor's image problem wasn't just an online issue.
According to the poll, only 35 per cent of respondents said they were "enthusiastically" supporting Dr Oz. Almost half of the respondents — 45 per cent — said they had "some reservations," and nearly 20 per cent said they were only voting for him to try to stop Mr Fetterman.
The doctor's challenger, Mr Fetterman, has the "enthusiastic" support of two-thirds of the poll's Democratic respondents.
