Taking a page from his own playbook, Trump urged Mehmet Oz (‘Dr. Oz’) to ‘declare victory’ over his opponent in the Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary…even though all the votes haven’t been counted yet.
It’s the same move the former President tried when he falsely declared himself a winner when Biden won the election.
“It’s very reminiscent of what we saw in 2020,” said Al Schmidt, a Republican who served as a city commissioner in Philadelphia and whose family endured death threats after Trump tweeted at him in 2020. Schmidt, who oversaw the city’s elections, added: “It’s an indication that he’s not confident that his candidate is going to win. When it looks like you’re losing, you want to flip the board game over — you’re clearly afraid of the outcome.”
Thousands of mail-in ballots still need to be counted. Pennsylvania law mandates an automatic recount if a candidate’s margin of victory is 0.5 percentage points or less. Under state procedures, if a recount is triggered, a final result will be submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of State on June 8.