A new advertisement produced on behalf of Mehmet Oz’s US Senate campaign in Pennsylvania features just one narrator: a woman identified as Janice H of Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania.
The ad, produced by the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, attempts to appeal to Black voters in the state by recalling an incident Democratic candidate John Fetterman’s past, when Mr Fetterman, then mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, chased down a Black jogger with a shotgun and held him until police arrived at the scene.
Mr Fetterman said that he was responding to what thought were gunshots. The jogger, Chris Miyares, had not committed a crime.
“Now this guy wants to be in the Senate? Are you serious?” Janice H, the narrator, says.
But according to reporting from HuffPost, Janice H is not just any concerned Black voter in Pennsylvania. She is Janice Hollis, an evangelical pastor and longtime conservative activist who once wrote an op-ed endorsing Mitt Romney and casting doubt on the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s US citizenship.
Per HuffPost, Ms Hollis was a member of a coalition of conservative Black ministers who repeatedly attacked Democratic officials from Mr Obama to the Congressional Black Caucus during the last decade.
In an op-ed that appeared in Christian Newswire in 2012, Ms Hollis warned that “the future of America may be in Ohio’s hands,” and asked readers there to consider supporting Mr Romney over Mr Obama for president.
“We have a sitting president whose religion is questioned, whose nationality is questioned, whose passport is questioned, whose economic theory is questioned, whose so-called apology tour is questioned, and whose policies governing the fate of the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi is questioned,” the op-ed read at one point. “There is a lot we do not know about him.”
Ms Hollis told HuffPost that she did not write the op-ed and never agreed to have her name associated with it. She also told the outlet that the idea that Mr Obama was not a US citizen was “racial” and “a very cheap shot”.
Ms Hollis is not the only longtime conservative activist, former candidate, or media professional who Mr Oz and his allies have employed to give the appearance that he is succeeding in winning support from the state’s Black voters. At an event last month, Mr Oz spoke with Philadelphia resident Sheila Armstrong about the toll of gun violence on her family — without disclosing that Ms Armstrong was not just a local resident, but also an Oz campaign employee.
Another advertisement from the Republican Jewish Coalition aimed at Black voters features a narrator identified as Melvin J, who HuffPost identified as former conservative write-in congressional candidate Melvin Prince Johnakin.
The pivotal race between Mr Oz and Mr Fetterman has tightened in recent days as Republicans have surged in races across the country, though Mr Fetterman has led nearly every poll of the race taken this fall. If the race stays close, Black voters in cities like Philadelphia could be decisive.
“My message to Black voters: do your homework about John Fetterman,” Ms Hollis says in the ad. “He didn’t even apologise, and now he wants our vote? Not a chance.”
