Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Kathy Barnette did not deliver a concession speech on Tuesday night after she trailed candidates Dave McCormick and Mehmet Oz, but she thanked her staff and supporters for their hard work.
“We have put up a good fight. I am so grateful to the people that I have met throughout this commonwealth,” Barnette said during her watch party.
“They haven’t called it, I’m not conceding, so don’t report it,” she said to reporters in the room. “I just want to take this time to just say thank you.”
Although she choked up onstage at one point, Barnette delivered an upbeat message.
“The Republican Party — we have some of the best people,” she said. “Thank you so much for all of your hard work. I appreciate it so much.”
Barnette saw a last minute surge, after a debate where she spoke about her personal story of being born to a mother who was raped, in the aftermath of the leak of a Supreme Court decision draft overturning Roe v. Wade.
“My story is as much about you as it is about me,” she said. “You didn’t see me run an ugly campaign. You didn’t see me put out an ugly ad. I made the main thing you.”
However, Barnette also faced questions over her electability in a general race against Democrat candidate John Fetterman, and about previous statements she made and her handling of questions about her past from reporters.
She urged her supporters to continue fighting the left.
“Do not be discouraged, because we have a country to save,” she said. “The left has shown us that they are not playing with us when they say they want to fundamentally change this country.”
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