Jeff Bartos speaks during a debate with other Republican Party candidates seeking to win the party nomination in the 2022 election for the U.S. Senate on Jan. 12, in New Castle, Pa. | Keith Srakocic/AP Photo
YORK, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Republican Party declined Saturday to endorse a candidate in the state’s highly competitive and increasingly ugly Senate primary.
The members of the GOP state committee, which closed its meeting in Lancaster on Saturday to the press, voted down a motion to endorse candidates in any statewide race by voice vote, according to several sources in the room.
Ahead of the vote, most state Republicans predicted there would be no endorsement. Still, the non-endorsement was a disappointment for real estate developer Jeff Bartos, whose campaign did not project a victory before the meeting but had received the most votes in straw polls of committee members in regional caucuses in the weeks leading up to Saturday.
Bartos, who has struggled in the polls and been outspent by celebrity physician Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick, needs to shake up the race to overcome his rivals’ financial and name ID advantages. Oz and McCormick have also spent more on television ads so far than a pro-Bartos super PAC.