Dina’s Boy in Pa. May Be a MAGA Casualty

Dave and Dina
Photo By Tom Williams/Getty Images
Tina Nguyen
April 29, 2022

There are two and a half weeks left in the Pennsylvania Senate G.O.P. primary race, which features two non-native Pennsylvanian frontrunners with outsized statures and .001 percent status, mugging for the hearts and minds of the Rust Belt Trump voter. But the most uncomfortable part of the messy electoral gauntlet that Mehmet Oz and David “Dave” McCormick have to navigate is the whole 2020 election thing: was it stolen, as Donald Trump claims? Presumably, as well-educated coastal elites who formerly ran successful businesses and interfaced frequently with polite society, both Oz and Dave know that all credible accusations of election fraud are foolhardy. But as two ambition machines misdirected toward a legacy-burnishing political conquest, both also know that Republicans’ handling of this perilous question is the most important detail in a political portfolio nowadays.