Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carla Sands attacked opponent Kathy Barnette by calling her Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s “favorite candidate.”
“Kathy Barnette is Chuck Shumer’s favorite candidate in the Pa Senate race!” Sands tweeted on Saturday.
Sands’ hit against Barnette comes after Barnette’s campaign plateaued following a brief surge that put her within striking distance of Dr. Mehmet Oz. Her star power began to steadily rise with conservatives and the MAGA Trump base after she released her powerful video in which she decried abortion by citing her own beginnings as a child conceived in rape when her mother was just age 11.
“I’m the byproduct of rape. My mother was eleven when I was conceived,” she tweeted. “In the world the Left desires, I would never have been born. We need leaders with a steady hand to direct our nation through these difficult discussions.”
However, days later, questions began to erupt regarding Barnette’s military service and the amount of time she served. After significant requests, she finally released her DD-214, which appeared to corroborate her past statements. As Breitbart News explained:
Barnette posted the DD-214 on Twitter, after nearly a week of questions from reporters trying to vet her record and asking for that specific document, which raised questions over whether the surging candidate was ready for a general election in November.
The DD-214 shows the first few months of her military career in 1990 — which would be basic training and advanced individual training for her military occupational specialty (MOS), which at that time was administrative specialist.
Retired Army Col. Kurt Schlicter, who is backing Barnette’s opponent David McCormick in the race, told Breitbart News after viewing the DD-214 that Barnette released, “There’s nothing that jumps out at me that’s unusual about this.”
As Barnette moved to the front of the brigade, former President Donald Trump, who backed Oz, publicly said she would have a tough time winning the general election against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
“Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the General Election against the Radical Left Democrats,” Trump stated, noting that she has “many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted, but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party—and I will be behind her all the way.”
As of Saturday, recent polls have put Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick in the lead by just one point, well within the margin of error.