2022 Congressional & State Elections

[LFC]

Georgia goobernatorial candidate David Perdue had to be courted to run. I wonder what Trump is paying him.

Ex-President Donald Trump had to do quite a bit of arm-twisting to get former Sen. David Perdue (R) to run against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in the upcoming gubernatorial election, according to the Washington Post.

First of all, the Post reported that Perdue privately blamed his defeat in the Jan. 5, 2021 Senate runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff on Trump, who was at the time fresh-off his crusade of falsely claiming Georgia’s election process was rigged — therefore giving GOP voters the impression that they shouldn’t bother voting in the high-stakes Senate race in the first place.

Trump reportedly tried to pressure Perdue into running for governor in early 2021 during two rounds of golf at the ex-president’s Mar-A-Lago resort. However, Perdue wasn’t persuaded, and Kemp told advisers that the former senator had promised him he wouldn’t run, according to the Post.

Then Trump reportedly had Perdue come over two more times for a golfing session in the months following his first lobbying attempts and drew up a poll that apparently indicated the former senator could beat Kemp.

Perdue finally caved and launched his campaign with Trump’s stamp of approval in December, even though his friends and advisers had urged him not to out of fear his bid might fracture the GOP, the Post reported.

Since jumping into the race, Perdue has made it clear that he’s running on the sole platform of lying about the 2020 election on Trump’s behalf and blaming nonexistent voter fraud on Kemp, who’s currently enjoying a double-digit lead over Perdue in the polls.

[LFC]

Candidate and ex-football player Herschel Walker once again proves why he's a good fit for the GOP.

A report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Trump-backed Senate candidate Herschel Walker has spent the past two decades slinging sham health products through businesses that repeatedly fail. His products—such as Sunutra, a plant extract with “phytonutrients” that allegedly mitigate threats of cancer and disease—were marketed as “revolutionizing” goods that could turn “back your biological clock.” But in filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Walker’s company, American Consolidated Management Group, admitted: “These beliefs are not supported by medical evidence generally accepted by the medical community.” The products were not only incapable of warding off heart disease, but also of keeping ACMG afloat. The company folded in 2013 after racking up $7 million in debt, the AJC reports. Walker has also served as a spokesman for dubious health products, including a purported libido booster, an anti-aging line, and a prophylactic that claimed could “kill any COVID in your body.”

[goldenvalley]

This guy...

It worked so well in the Senate races in Georgia.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 29, 2022 2:34:33 GMT goldenvalley said:

This guy...

It worked so well in the Senate races in Georgia.

Oh please, PLEASE employ that strategy in Flori-DUH…

[LFC]

Republicans are moving to put fascist election thieves into the position of secretary of state where they would wield enormous power to steal elections.

A crop of election deniers — some hand-picked by former President Donald Trump — are gunning to control elections in key battlegrounds as secretaries of state.

The movement is a clear extension of Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election, but also something immediately more sinister: should these dyed-in-the-wool partisans take the helm, it seems likely that any Democratic victories in their states would be subject to, at the best, scrutiny, and at the worst, efforts to overturn the results completely.

These doubters and deniers are running throughout the country, though they’ll have less leeway to affect nationwide elections in virtually single-party states like Alabama and Arkansas. Some are also mounting long-shot challenges in securely blue states like Massachusetts and California.

Accordingly, Trump has focused his attention and endorsements on states that have disproportionate power in deciding presidential contests: Michigan, Georgia and Arizona. Eager deniers in Nevada and Ohio round out a picture of Trump acolytes with their sights set on offices they could use to guarantee that their preferred candidate wins, no matter the will of the voters.

[LFC]

This is not a primary candidate, it's an actual nominee. This is stone cold normal for the GOP anymore.

Meet Your 2022 GOP House Candidates

GOP nominee J.R. Majewski, who is seeking to unseat Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) in November, doesn’t just advance Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election: He was also in D.C. on Jan. 6 for the pro-Trump protests that preceded the Capitol attack (though he denies being involved in the violence), claims that the violence that unfolded that day was “driven” by the FBI and was “a stage show,” and has sympathized and rubbed shoulders with QAnon believers.

Also in Ohio JD Vance won the Republican nomination by going totally batshit nuts.

J.D. Vance, a Middletown native and venture capitalist who rose to fame with his bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," has been projected by the Associated Press to win the GOP primary. The 37-year-old who has never held political office outlasted a field of six other candidates in the race to replace the outgoing Sen. Rob Portman.

[goldenvalley]

May 5, 2022 14:34:08 GMT LFC said:

This is not a primary candidate, it's an actual nominee. This is stone cold normal for the GOP anymore.

Meet Your 2022 GOP House Candidates

GOP nominee J.R. Majewski, who is seeking to unseat Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) in November, doesn’t just advance Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election: He was also in D.C. on Jan. 6 for the pro-Trump protests that preceded the Capitol attack (though he denies being involved in the violence), claims that the violence that unfolded that day was “driven” by the FBI and was “a stage show,” and has sympathized and rubbed shoulders with QAnon believers.

This guy Majewski is an immature individual in his ads and social media:

A hulking Air Force veteran who works in the nuclear security field, he first gained attention in Ohio by turning his lawn into a 19,000-square-foot “Trump 2020” sign.

During his campaign, he ran one ad showing him carrying an assault-style rifle in which he says, “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to return this country back to its former glory,” adding, “If I’ve got to kick down doors, well, that’s just what patriots do.”

He also posted a “Let’s Go Brandon” music video on his website in which he raps a verse, warning, “Just try to put a mask on me, you’ll see red, white and blue.”

This is just the sort of political discourse we need from potential members of Congress.

[pnwguy]

May 5, 2022 15:32:44 GMT goldenvalley said:

“Just try to put a mask on me, you’ll see red, white and blue.”

Sounds like he needs this kind of mask.

[goldenvalley]

May 5, 2022 15:42:14 GMT pnwguy said:

May 5, 2022 15:32:44 GMT goldenvalley said:

“Just try to put a mask on me, you’ll see red, white and blue.”

Sounds like he needs this kind of mask.

He'd probably relish the bad boy image.  

[LFC]

May 5, 2022 15:32:44 GMT goldenvalley said:

This guy Majewski is an immature individual in his ads and social media:

Another MTG / Bimboebert only not in a dress ... unless he's more like Madison Cawthorn than we know.

[LFC]

A fascist Republican (but I repeat myself) PA goobernatorial candidate ran away from an interview when he's pressed on his repetition of The Big Lie and what he was doing at the Jan 6 Republican Insurrection. Clearly he's ready to spew all sorts of garbage to a receptive audience but is too cowardly to defend it to non-MAGAts.

Doug Mastriano, the Pennsylvania state senator who’s a leading contender for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, ended an interview Wednesday after being asked about his promotion of the Big Lie and attendance at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol attack.

Mastriano’s interview with the Delaware Valley Journal podcast ended with Michael Graham, an editor for the publication, asking Mastriano, “How do you plan to handle, as the Republican candidate, the issue of your claim that the election was stolen?”

But the candidate didn’t answer. He’d hung up mid-question after commenting, “All I hear from you is nonsense.”

“I guess that question would have been better waiting for the end, huh?” chuckled Linda Stein, the Valley Journal’s news editor.

The exchange capped a nearly 20-minute interview that grew contentious about halfway through. Graham noted an April event Mastriano attended — featuring conspiracy theories about such topics as 9/11, Hitler’s death and child sacrifice — and Jan. 6, for which Mastriano organized a bus trip.

“What do you think happened on Jan. 6, and what should the right response have been to that?” Graham asked.

But the candidate wasn’t having it, calling the question “disingenuous” and asking why the left got a “free pass.”

“As far as my right to assemble, you may forget, we do have a Constitution, and, unlike you, I actually defended that Constitution for 30 years of my life, it’s no game,” Mastriano said.

“And I resent the fact that you want to castigate anyone who went down to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 as some kind of an enemy of the public. That is dangerous. You’re talking like an East German there because we have the right to assemble under the Constitution. Shame on you.”

Things only got worse from there. Stein attempted twice to get the interview back on track, asking about crime in Philadelphia and then mail-in voting rules, but Mastriano kept returning to Graham’s supposed effort to infringe on his right to assemble. At one point, he referred to the interview as a “waste of time,” adding later: “I don’t like the nature and tone of this whole interview.”

Separately, he compared the Jan. 6 crowd to Black Lives Matter protesters.

“Anyone who breaks the law at any event, whether it’s in Washington, D.C. or Minnesota, they need to be held to equal justice,” Mastriano said.

That's some full blown fascist shit, right there.

[AnBr]

May 5, 2022 14:34:08 GMT LFC said:

Also in Ohio JD Vance won the Republican nomination by going totally batshit nuts.

This might work against them. His opponent. Tim Ryan, is working it like Sherrod Brown by vying for the worker vote. Remember that Brown keeps easily winning, even with the right throws more money against him than nearly all other Senate races. Also, keep in mind that Ohio is a purple state that has been gerrymandered red.

[Bact PhD]

I’m putting this here because it illustrates something I’ve been saying to Chem PhD since the re-districting of the early ‘aughts—that one party has been very aggressive at developing its bench for running in future statewide elections…and that party ain’t the Democrats. I can go back to some seemingly insignificant local races (getting phone bank calls for a candidate for District 2 in the Soil and Water Conservation District; a set of School Board candidates that looked clearly to be a “slate”, eg) well over a decade ago. Now they’re just being up-front about their partisan loyalties.

www.gainesville.com/story/news/politics/2022/05/09/florida-republicans-focus-school-board-races-bolster-ron-desantis/9657338002/

This year, Florida Republicans are amping up their focus on these non-partisan school board contests, promoting a sophisticated training and broad recruitment campaign expected to result in dozens of conservative contenders entering this year’s roughly 120 school board races, which formally begin with next month’s candidate qualifying.

The goal: Win command of more of Florida's 67 school districts and unseat board members who dissent from Gov. Ron DeSantis' controversial education policies.

[snip]

DeSantis is fueling the conservative push, viewing it as a chance to quell opposition. His approach is simple. He wants allies to control as many boards as possible following this fall’s elections.

“You can throw the bums out in the election,” DeSantis said. “If they mistreated your kids or they didn’t follow the law…you have an opportunity, for many of them will be up for re-election.”

DeSantis sounded that rallying cry in Daytona Beach several weeks ago after signing legislation imposing 12-year term limits on school board members and subjecting most material in school libraries and classrooms to new governmental oversight and approval practices.

The governor said in Lakeland last month that he plans "to be involved in school board races. We’re going to make sure we’re going to be able to support the candidates who are going to be reflective of our values.”

But educators and many board members say they are tired of being targeted, particularly for actions which they say are often mischaracterized by opponents.

“This attempt to partisan-ize our public schools and make it about political loyalty and not about our kids is misguided and will backfire,” said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union and a former Volusia County teacher.

In these-here parts, School Board can serve as a stepping stone to other political offices.

[goldenvalley]

Yeah school boards have traditionally been jumping off points for a political career.  It's been less so in the recent past because the concept of climbing the ladder to higher offices based on name recognition has been destroyed by the choice of many to skip steps and run for office with a sizable campaign chest of money to buy the name recognition instead.  

I wonder how many of these wannabes will find that school board work is pretty boring and not nearly as substantive as they might like to believe.

[Bact PhD]

May 10, 2022 14:55:45 GMT goldenvalley said:

I wonder how many of these wannabes will find that school board work is pretty boring and not nearly as substantive as they might like to believe.

Dunno— do they start behaving like Mickey once he gets the Sorcerer’s Hat on, thinking they can control…everything?

[pg]

May 10, 2022 13:05:27 GMT Bact PhD said:

I’m putting this here because it illustrates something I’ve been saying to Chem PhD since the re-districting of the early ‘aughts—that one party has been very aggressive at developing its bench for running in future statewide elections…and that party ain’t the Democrats. I can go back to some seemingly insignificant local races (getting phone bank calls for a candidate for District 2 in the Soil and Water Conservation District; a set of School Board candidates that looked clearly to be a “slate”, eg) well over a decade ago. Now they’re just being up-front about their partisan loyalties.

www.gainesville.com/story/news/politics/2022/05/09/florida-republicans-focus-school-board-races-bolster-ron-desantis/9657338002/

This year, Florida Republicans are amping up their focus on these non-partisan school board contests, promoting a sophisticated training and broad recruitment campaign expected to result in dozens of conservative contenders entering this year’s roughly 120 school board races, which formally begin with next month’s candidate qualifying.

The goal: Win command of more of Florida's 67 school districts and unseat board members who dissent from Gov. Ron DeSantis' controversial education policies.

[snip]

DeSantis is fueling the conservative push, viewing it as a chance to quell opposition. His approach is simple. He wants allies to control as many boards as possible following this fall’s elections.

“You can throw the bums out in the election,” DeSantis said. “If they mistreated your kids or they didn’t follow the law…you have an opportunity, for many of them will be up for re-election.”

DeSantis sounded that rallying cry in Daytona Beach several weeks ago after signing legislation imposing 12-year term limits on school board members and subjecting most material in school libraries and classrooms to new governmental oversight and approval practices.

The governor said in Lakeland last month that he plans "to be involved in school board races. We’re going to make sure we’re going to be able to support the candidates who are going to be reflective of our values.”

But educators and many board members say they are tired of being targeted, particularly for actions which they say are often mischaracterized by opponents.

“This attempt to partisan-ize our public schools and make it about political loyalty and not about our kids is misguided and will backfire,” said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union and a former Volusia County teacher.

In these-here parts, School Board can serve as a stepping stone to other political offices.

Can I "love" a comment? Bold is mine. I agree that we first saw the emergence of the bottom-up GOP strategy in the 80's- depending upon what part of the country you live in. But the strategy was formed in the mid-70s, which is why it was so effective when put into motion. 

Democrats in my area are trying and still mostly failing, due to natural bias against political manipulation. Huh. We make no mistake. School Boards are the most manipulative potential sea-changers of all. "All politics is local" is the name of this game. Thank you for the reminder.

[Art Vandelay]

It turns out JD Vance was a contributor on the FrumForum under a pseudonym. 

The J. D. Vance I Knew

In some ways, there are continuities between the FrumForum Vance and candidate Vance. Both are deeply concerned about the deteriorating prospects for working-class white America; both are immigration skeptics. But the differences are more profound. FrumForum Vance scorned culture-warring, valued expertise, endorsed social inclusion, rejected partisan rancor, and supported America’s important role in world security. All that has been left behind by Senate candidate Vance.

[goldenvalley]

May 11, 2022 20:50:16 GMT Art Vandelay said:

It turns out JD Vance was a contributor on the FrumForum under a pseudonym. 

The J. D. Vance I Knew

In some ways, there are continuities between the FrumForum Vance and candidate Vance. Both are deeply concerned about the deteriorating prospects for working-class white America; both are immigration skeptics. But the differences are more profound. FrumForum Vance scorned culture-warring, valued expertise, endorsed social inclusion, rejected partisan rancor, and supported America’s important role in world security. All that has been left behind by Senate candidate Vance.

So Vance was an opportunist blowing with the dominant political forces in the Republican Party.  There are lots of politicians that do that.  His swing to the polar opposite was done more publicly than most. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz swung too but they were already Senators when they did it.

And that book of his was a lot of old Reagan anti poor people talk and a lot of boy from small town enters the larger world.  I never understood why it was hailed as ground breaking or why someone made a movie of it.

[LFC]

Brian Kemp decides his only choice is to embrace non-fealty to Trump.

There’s an argument to be made that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) et al. knew what they were getting themselves into; the wrath from Trump their little musketeers-ing might evoke.

Former President Donald Trump has responded with fury to news that two prominent Republican governors and one household name ex-governor have banded together to support incumbent Kemp in Georgia’s gubernatorial primaries later this month. Trump branded the four-some — Kemp, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) — a pile of “RINOs” and warned Georgia voters that supporting Kemp meant there’d be lots more Big Lying to come … as if Trump hasn’t been (not so) privately plotting to cry election fraud each and every time he doesn’t get his way from now until the end of time.

“Today, the worst ‘election integrity’ Governor in the country, Brian Kemp, loaded the great state of Georgia up with RINOs,” Trump said in a statement.

“That’s right, he had them all. Chris Christie, Doug Ducey from Arizona, and Pete Ricketts from Nebraska. That tells you all you need to know about what you are getting in Georgia – just a continuation of bad elections and a real RINO if you vote for Brian Kemp,” he continued.

It’s just Trump’s latest swipe at Kemp — whom he blames, in part, for his 2020 presidential election loss — but it’s seemingly not an uncalculated move on Kemp’s part. The governor is more than aware of Trump’s ire, made official when Trump not only endorsed Kemp’s primary opponent former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) a few months back, but also had to reportedly convince the former senator to throw his hat in the ring in the first place.

And it’s no secret that Georgia Republicans on some level blame Trump for Perdue and former Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s losses during the runoff in 2021, gifting the Senate majority to Democrats. Trump’s outbursts about a stolen election and his pointed focus on voter fraud in the state of Georgia at the time didn’t do much to boost voter confidence in the electoral system and dampened Republican turnout for the Senate races.

And so Kemp earning the backing of three well-known GOPers — whether they’re “RINOs” or otherwise — was always going to make Trump mad; the guy’s made a political career out of pretending to be an outsider while privately desperate to be accepted by Washington’s mainstream. Kemp might be attempting to capitalize on that conventional wisdom. Knowing he’ll never win Trump over again, he may as well embrace the role and lean in, provoking the mercurial ex-president’s temper to remind voters he can withstand it.

If that’s the case, it seems Trump took the bait.

[LFC]

Oh, Ronjohn. You really are dim.

Sen. Ron Johnson’s comments on abortion today are revealing. He has the yikes quote: Abortion “might be a little messy for some people” post-Roe. But the real takeaway is his other comment, suggesting that the whole thing is no big deal because women will still be able to cross the border to Illinois and get an abortion there. That tells you very clearly that he doesn’t want to run on opposition to abortion in his state when it really matters — not just a hypothetical about what judges might do in the future or the options for women in deep red states. It’s an issue that can be used to pry that Senate seat right out of his hands.

That’s not only because he’s on the wrong side of public opinion in the state. It’s also because he won’t be able to clearly answer basic questions a solid Democratic campaign would put to him. He’ll spend the whole campaign ducking them.

[goldenvalley]

May 12, 2022 20:06:18 GMT LFC said:

Brian Kemp decides his only choice is to embrace non-fealty to Trump.

There’s an argument to be made that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) et al. knew what they were getting themselves into; the wrath from Trump their little musketeers-ing might evoke.

Former President Donald Trump has responded with fury to news that two prominent Republican governors and one household name ex-governor have banded together to support incumbent Kemp in Georgia’s gubernatorial primaries later this month. Trump branded the four-some — Kemp, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) — a pile of “RINOs” and warned Georgia voters that supporting Kemp meant there’d be lots more Big Lying to come … as if Trump hasn’t been (not so) privately plotting to cry election fraud each and every time he doesn’t get his way from now until the end of time.

“Today, the worst ‘election integrity’ Governor in the country, Brian Kemp, loaded the great state of Georgia up with RINOs,” Trump said in a statement.

“That’s right, he had them all. Chris Christie, Doug Ducey from Arizona, and Pete Ricketts from Nebraska. That tells you all you need to know about what you are getting in Georgia – just a continuation of bad elections and a real RINO if you vote for Brian Kemp,” he continued.

It’s just Trump’s latest swipe at Kemp — whom he blames, in part, for his 2020 presidential election loss — but it’s seemingly not an uncalculated move on Kemp’s part. The governor is more than aware of Trump’s ire, made official when Trump not only endorsed Kemp’s primary opponent former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) a few months back, but also had to reportedly convince the former senator to throw his hat in the ring in the first place.

And it’s no secret that Georgia Republicans on some level blame Trump for Perdue and former Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s losses during the runoff in 2021, gifting the Senate majority to Democrats. Trump’s outbursts about a stolen election and his pointed focus on voter fraud in the state of Georgia at the time didn’t do much to boost voter confidence in the electoral system and dampened Republican turnout for the Senate races.

And so Kemp earning the backing of three well-known GOPers — whether they’re “RINOs” or otherwise — was always going to make Trump mad; the guy’s made a political career out of pretending to be an outsider while privately desperate to be accepted by Washington’s mainstream. Kemp might be attempting to capitalize on that conventional wisdom. Knowing he’ll never win Trump over again, he may as well embrace the role and lean in, provoking the mercurial ex-president’s temper to remind voters he can withstand it.

If that’s the case, it seems Trump took the bait.

The MAGA voters of Georgia don't care what these governors think.  That's the problem with everything...no matter who says anything, no matter what the Select Committee finds, or the outcomes of any trial relating to anything Trump related...those folks are securely oblivious to or disbelieving of anything contrary to their hero and his version of life.

[LFC]

In the race to be PA's Republican Senate nominee we had a famous quack doctor, a millionaire former CEO of a hedge fund, and a conservative talking head. The race is now too close to call between the quack and the millionaire with the losing talking head refusing to concede, but the quack doctor is up by over 2,500 votes. Gawd the middle of my state is so f***ed up.

[LFC]

Idaho appears to have displayed a bit of sanity and strongly rejected the utter nutter running for governor. Maybe residents aren't happy with becoming the center of fascism and white supremacy in America.

Idaho’s governor Brad Little on Tuesday night easily beat back a far-right challenge in the Republican primary from his own lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin.

McGeachin, who earned Trump’s endorsement to be Idaho’s next governor, has for years made a show of undermining Little’s authority. (In Idaho, the governor and lieutenant governor run on separate tickets.)

The Associated Press called the race less than 90 minutes after polls closed in Idaho. Little, at that time, had a significant lead, with 61.8 percent of the vote to McGeachin’s 24.4 percent. The AP estimated that 31.7 percent of the vote had been counted.

[LFC]

The treasonous, fascist, Christianist candidate won the Republican nomination for governor in Pennsylvania. The middle of my state sucks. This guy is the worst advocate of The Big Lie in the state.

Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano surged to victory over a grab bag of primary challengers Tuesday night to become Pennsylvania Republicans’ candidate for governor.

He’ll face state attorney general Josh Shapiro, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Mastriano, who former president Donald Trump endorsed Saturday, ran for the Republican nomination primarily on a platform of denying Joe Biden’s legitimacy as president. A rabble of primary challengers, including former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta and Trump-era U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bill McSwain, failed to capture voters’ imaginations in the same way.

The Associated Press called the race just before 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday. With an estimated 50 percent of the vote counted, Mastriano led with 42 percent. Runner-up Barletta had 23 percent.

Mastriano is something of a hero among election truthers. He wasn’t just present in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 — he organized a bus caravan to the city and witnessed violence firsthand. A staffer on Mastriano’s campaign got as far as a shattered door on the Capitol’s exterior, NBC News reported Monday, and was later seen laughing as rioters smashed media equipment.

The state senator was subpoenaed by the congressional Jan. 6 Committee in February.

[LFC]

I've got a bit of schadefreude over the fact that the tight race that's come down to Oz and McCormick will likely be settled by mail-in ballots. I'm sure the loser will savage mail-in ballots while the winner will tapdance around them.

When 2 million mail-in ballots carried Joe Biden over the line in Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump was the first to cry foul. So what will the former guy say if his favored candidate in the Republican Pennsylvania U.S. Senate primary has to rely on those same mailed-in votes to eke out a victory? As of Wednesday morning, former TV doctor Mehmet Oz is neck and neck with hedge funder David McCormick after a night of counting and it looks increasingly likely that the contest will come down to how the mail-in votes pan out, followed by a near-certain automatic recount. As of 2 a.m. Wednesday, Oz was almost 3,000 votes ahead, but McCormick’s camp remained bullish, confident that votes still to come, especially from around Pittsburgh, would favor him.