Former President Trump is reportedly having second thoughts about getting behind future GOP primary candidates after the Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary results have thus far failed to be a clear cut win for his endorsee, CNN reports.
One of Trump’s allies, who spoke with CNN, said the former president is “agitated” that his endorsement of celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz did not produce a decisive win for Oz against rival David McCormick. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Pennsylvania GOP primary remains too close to call. An automatic recount is expected under Pennsylvania law.
“This is not how he expected this to go,” one of the advisers told CNN. “If Oz loses, it puts him in an awkward spot because he absolutely trashed David McCormick at his rally and pissed off quite a few allies who never thought he should have endorsed Oz.”
Trump expressed his frustration with his endorsee’s razor-thin lead over McCormick on Wednesday in a post on his TRUTH Social app, urging Oz to simply “declare victory” even before the primary race is called.
Trump allies told CNN that the former president will be hesitant to jump into other contentious primaries if Oz loses Pennsylvania. Despite vowing to endorse a new candidate after withdrawing his support for Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) last month in the Alabama Senate race, some of his allies told CNN the former president is holding off on announcing an endorsement there as well, due to the deadlocked Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary. (Trump dumped Brooks last month, accusing the GOP congressman of making a “horrible mistake” when he apparently “went woke” by daring to utter it was time to move on from the 2020 presidential election.)
Despite Trump claiming to have had a “spectacular” primary night on Wednesday, primaries in Pennsylvania and North Carolina the day before delivered mixed results for the former president. Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the deadly Capitol insurrection last year, clinched the GOP nomination in the governor’s race. But in North Carolina, Trump-backed Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) lost his primary amid a slew of scandals that rattled his GOP colleagues.
