GOP panics over ‘ultra-MAGA’ Pennsylvania Senate wild card

Influential Republicans in Washington and among the nationwide party elite are having a belated "oh s--t" moment over the previously unimaginable prospect that Kathy Barnette could win their party's nomination for the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Why it matters: In Barnette, who's been soaring in the polls ahead of Tuesday's primary, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would be dealing with a general election candidate who'd be an opposition researcher's dream — potentially endangering the GOP effort to take back the Senate. McConnell has been fixated on ensuring the 2022 midterms are not a repeat of the 2012 or 2010 cycles. The Kentuckian said Republicans missed good chances to win the majority in those years because they nominated candidates who talked about things like "legitimate rape" or had to publicly assure voters they weren't witches.

Barnette’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Barnette has surged after releasing a powerful video — "It wasn't a choice. It was a life." — in which she movingly talks about how her mother was raped when she was 11 and yet Barnette is the living, breathing byproduct of that horrific circumstance. The video's hit a nerve with primary voters in Pennsylvania, a source close to one of Barnette's rivals told Axios, and gained resonance following the leak of a draft Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Barnette is also the uncommon Black Republican candidate. At the same time, a cursory review of her Twitter account, @Kathy4Truth, turned up tweets like this one: "Just confronted a Muslim today." She joins Missouri Senate candidate Eric Greitens — whose alleged misdeeds are numerous and graphic — on a list of potential Republican Senate nominees giving heartburn to GOP leadership. They not only create the potential of blowing winnable seats but being unmanageable for McConnell should he return as Senate majority leader next year.