Former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) on Wednesday urged Mehmet Oz, his favorite in the Republican primaries for one of the seats in the state of Pennsylvania in the Senate, to declare victory without waiting for the final results of the count.
Trump made those statements on the social network that he has promoted himself and that bears the name of “Truth” (Truth).
“Doctor Oz should declare victory,” said the former president, who took the opportunity to sow doubts about the vote count and claim that Oz “frankly has already won the election.”
After the November 2020 elections, in which Democrat Joe Biden won, Trump himself alleged on multiple occasions without providing evidence that fraud had occurred and promoted conspiracy theories that were rejected by the US courts.
Oz, a television celebrity known for his “The Dr. Oz Show,” faced off in the Republican Party primary with more moderate businessman David McCormick.
In the United States there is no central electoral authority and it is the media that declares a winner based on their data.
No outlet has declared the winner, although Oz leads by some 1,700 votes of the 1.3 million that have already been counted, according to The Washington Post.
Thousands of ballots remain to be counted, including some 22,000 that were received by mail.
If the current situation holds and the winning candidate’s margin of victory is less than 0.5%, the losing candidate’s campaign will have the right, under Pennsylvania state law, to request a recount of the vote.
Both Oz and McCormick addressed their supporters on Tuesday night and asked them to wait for the official results.
The Republican candidate who wins those primaries will face John Fetterman, a 2-meter-tall Democrat with tattooed arms who has created his own brand fleeing from those who tried to classify him at one end or the other of the Democratic Party.
That race for one of Pennsylvania’s two Senate seats will be one of the most important in the Nov. 8 election, with Democrats defending their narrow minorities in both houses of Congress.
In total, five states held primaries this Tuesday: Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Oregon.
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