Conservative strategist Kathy Barnette closed the door on a 2024 campaign for Pennsylvania Senate.
Barnette, an Army veteran, enjoyed a late-stage surge in the 2022 GOP primary for the Keystone State’s Senate seat and ultimately finished in third place. A slew of GOP operatives has been trying to court her former rival, businessman David McCormick, to run for Sen Bob Casey’s (D-PA) seat.
“Instead of playing coy, I wanted to come out and say I am not interested,” she told Politico. “I thought about it, and I wanted to be real clear.”
Rather than gear up for another run, Barnette is focused on helping 2024 presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy by spearheading a grassroots effort. A day prior, on Tuesday, Barnette appeared to leave a potential Senate run on the table.
“At this particular juncture, we have not made a decision on what it is that I’m going to do,” she told WPHT.
A recent poll from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling group found that Barnette garnered 11% support in a hypothetical primary, trailing McCormick at 21% and former GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano at 39%. Mastriano has revealed that he is “praying” over a potential run for Senate, which has jittered Pennsylvania Republican insiders.
“As a warning to Republican Pennsylvania voters, we need to take into very strong consideration not just who can win a primary in a landslide, but who will win and work extremely hard to win in the general because that’s ultimately what matters,” Barnette stressed to Politico.
She did not clarify whether she was referring to Mastriano, who lost the governor’s race to Gov. Josh Shapiro handily in the 2022 cycle by roughly 15 percentage points.
“We have the better policy ideas, but as we have witnessed, it’s not ideas alone, but who is willing to do the hard work of getting in front of all the people and convince them,” she added.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Meanwhile, McCormick released a book on Tuesday, Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America, outlining a conservative agenda in a move that has fueled 2024 buzz. He has also recently hired two veteran political operatives who did campaign work for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), according to the Washington Post.
During the primary, McCormick lost to celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz by a slim margin of fewer than 1,000 votes. Oz went on to lose to Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). The Washington Examiner contacted a Barnette representative for comment.
