LAUGHLINTOWN, Pa. – Michael Testa, 51, an army veteran and handyman, drives a minibus covered with stickers that read ‘Trump Won’.
Recently, he stood in the rain and mud for hours to attend Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania. He calls himself a “conspiracy realist” and said he is one of millions who believe the 2020 election was stolen from the former president.
But as he sat on his porch in Laughlintown, a small town in Westmoreland County outside of Pittsburgh that was once home to the Mellon family, he wasn’t sure which candidate to vote for in Tuesday’s Republican Senate primaries in Pennsylvania. He has doubts about supporting Mehmet Oz, the famous doctor who treated Mr. Trump has endorsed.
“I’m not going to be someone who does something just because one person says it, even if that person is Trump,” Mr Testa said.
Like other Republican primaries across the country, the race in the Pennsylvania Senate is testing how strong Mr Trump’s hold on the party remains. But unlike other primaries this year, the Pennsylvania Senate race has suddenly turned into something else — a case study of whether the movement Mr. Trump has created remains within his control.
In interviews with more than two dozen Republican voters in western Pennsylvania, many echoed Mr. Testa’s ambivalence and uncertainty about Dr. Oz — despite Mr Trump’s support, they view him with suspicion, calling him “too Hollywood” and questioning his ties to the state. Those Republicans, including Testa, said they voted instead for or are considering voting for Kathy Barnette, the far-right author and conservative media commentator who rose in the polls on a shoestring budget.
In a race that could determine control of the Senate, many Republicans in the state are deeply committed to Mr. Trump but at the same time less influenced by his leadership. Trumpism, as Mrs. Barnette herself put it on the campaign trail, is bigger than Trump.
Many voters said they chose who they thought would carry out Trump’s ideals, even if they and the former president disagreed on who could best achieve it. And interviews revealed how effectively Mrs. Barnette, who never held public office, had used her life story as a poor, black kid from the South to connect with white working-class voters in western Pennsylvania. At events and in her advertisements, Ms. Barnette often invokes the phrase “I am you.”
Many voters who said they intended to vote for Ms. Barnette struggled to remember her name, saying they supported “that black woman.” Those who said they voted for her said they weren’t aware of or bothered by her history of being homophobic and… anti-muslim views. But her strong anti-abortion views — Ms. Barnette calls herself a “rape byproduct” — were an important part of her appeal to white conservatives.
“I love what she stands for,” said Dolores Mrozinski, 83, who first saw Ms. Barnette on the Christian Television Network and was immediately impressed. “She’s no-nonsense and the real deal.”
Understand the Pennsylvania Primary Elections
The pivotal swing state will hold its primary on May 17, with key races for a US Senate seat and governorship.
Years ago, Ms. Mrozinski and her daughter, Janey Mrozinski, a 62-year-old physical therapist, watched Dr. Oz on television and even admired him. Now, the elder Mrs. Mrozinski said, “he just doesn’t seem real.”
“I don’t even know if he actually lives in Pennsylvania,” she said, referring to Dr. Oz’s long history, until recently, of living and voting in New Jersey. “He seems more Hollywood than here and it doesn’t impress me.”
Her daughter added: “He looks like he’s had a facelift.” On the other hand, David McCormick, a former hedge fund manager who also runs in the primaries, was just, she said, “too much, too proud of himself.”
In many ways, the vote for the Senate seat is as much a battle over the perception of authenticity as it is an ideological or policy debate. For months, the leading candidates have each tried to align closely with Mr Trump and promote their conservative credentials. In the thrilling battle between the leading contenders – Dr. Oz, Mrs. Barnette and Mr. McCormick – all three have done their best to establish themselves as the true MAGA warrior.
Some voters have clearly decided which one they think is more authentic. But others are still deciding.
A look at John Artzberger’s bodyshop along Highway 8 in Butler County makes his political leanings clear: A “Let’s Go Brandon” flag flies from the store’s tent and Trump paraphernalia blankets a large wall at the entrance. When a customer asked him to put a Barnette lawn sign in front of the door, he didn’t hesitate to agree. Still, the sign was only a sign – he said he was undecided and was considering voting for Mrs. Barnette or Dr. Oz.
“She’s 100 percent on our side — close the border, pro-life,” Mr Artzberger, 68, said of Ms Barnette. “If she gets it, she’ll be for the people.” Like many Republicans in Butler County, Mr. Artzberger last time from Dr. Oz in the spotlight with disdain.
“But again, Trump had also been in the public eye and he was really with us in the end,” he said. “I’ve changed, so maybe he’s changed too.”
In Westmoreland County’s Laughlintown, it takes about 10 steps to get from Mr. Testa’s old craftsman traveling to the front doors of the small brick church next door. At that close distance lies a glimpse of the Republican Party’s identity crisis.
Jonathan Huddleston, 48, the minister of Laughlintown Christian Church, calls himself a Never-Trump Republican but remains committed to helping the party, in part, “vote the wackos out”. He, too, is undecided — he’s considering voting for Mr. McCormick, who tried to get Trump’s approval but couldn’t.
“I want to support the Romneys of the world, the reasonable leaders, the ones who recruited me to start with,” said Mr Huddleston. “Now I am looking for such people. They drown out all other voices.”
Some Republican voters said they had tried to control the deluge of attack television ads from Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz, who each spent millions of dollars of their own wealth in the race. Opposition to Oz and McCormick’s ads appeared to favor Ms. Barnette, who spent less than $200,000 on her campaign.
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“It’s just every moment and nothing about what they say they’re going to do or how they’re going to help people,” says Jeannie Gsell, 70, who lives in Greensburg, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.
In 2020, Ms. Gsell, a registered Republican, voted for President Biden, after some persuasion from her liberal daughter. But she said she was disappointed by his time in the White House. She plans to vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary, but is still undecided. She said she would make up her mind by deciding who she thinks is the most sincere.
“People should go to Washington to take care of ordinary people’s priorities, not themselves, and to get richer or more famous,” Ms Gsell said.
In downtown Butler, a working-class town north of Pittsburgh, Brittney Meehan, a 34-year-old waitress, said the two main problems for her were “guns and weed — two that don’t normally go together.”
Meehan said she was “not absolutely sold on voting Republican,” citing her commitment to supporting both gun rights and abortion rights. “What I want is a real person, not people who are on that level, but just interact as human beings,” she added.
Meehan said she wished “people would just hear each other when they disagree”, a sentiment shared by Mr Huddleston, the minister in Laughlintown.
“I want to have honesty and respect, is it really that impossible?” said Mr. Huddleston as he sat in the pews recently.
He thinks of voters like his neighbor, Mr. Testa, and wonders what will become of moderate Republicans like him. The two men know each other, but they have not spoken directly about politics. He saw his neighbor’s many bumper stickers. One of them reads: “I have sworn an oath to protect against foreign and domestic.” He wondered what the meaning was. But for now, he said, “I didn’t feel it was kind to ask.”