SOUTHAMPTON, Pa. — As momentum lifts Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Kathy Barnette, there is also the swirling controversy and the questions about who she is — and about her role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
Barnette's sudden ascension has attracted the kind of scrutiny front-runners usually experience early in their campaigns, but it's coming less than one week before the May 17 primary. And what had been a race dominated by cardiothoracic surgeon and television personality Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick, has now, according to recent polling, become a three-person race in the most-watched primary in the country.
Party operatives and journalists are scrambling to understand a candidate who had been all but written off for her inability to fundraise the millions of dollars usually needed to win a statewide Senate seat. Key Republican politicians, from Donald Trump to Pat Toomey, have in recent days tried to warn GOP voters of the peril of nominating this relative unknown.
