Will Barnette’s Social Media Posts Turn Off Voters?
In Pennsylvania, the candidate with all of the momentum in the GOP Senate primary is Kathy Barnette, who surged into a statistical tie with the big-spending front-runners Dave McCormick and Mehmet Oz in the final week of the race. But because Barnette appeared to be a lower-tier candidate for most of the primary, she didn’t receive much media scrutiny prior to her late push (the one exception being a thorough Philadelphia Inquirer report on the central role she played in the idea that her 2020 House race and the presidential election was stolen).
That’s why, on a hunch, I decided to dig into Barnette’s old social media posts from her time as a conservative radio host. What I found was a history of Islamophobic tweets and Facebook posts, including several accusing then-President Barack Obama of being Muslim and a terrorist sympathizer, as well as calls to ban Islam in the United States and deny Muslims religious freedom.
That reporting kicked off a tumultuous week for Barnette, who faced subsequent questions over her military record, Pennsylvania residency, comments about Trump during the 2016 GOP primary, opinions on gay marriage and the Black Lives Matter movement. And on Monday, NBC News confirmed that Barnette marched to the U.S. Capitol alongside a group of Proud Boy members on January 6, 2021.
Given how fast-moving the news has been, it’s an open question of how much voters will register the furor around Barnette’s past. It’s also not clear if her past stances on hot-button issues will change any minds. One thing that is clear, though, is that nominating a candidate who hasn’t been thoroughly vetted can make things far more difficult for a party down the line: Just ask Christine O’Donnell.