A controversial far-right Republican has secured his party\u2019s nomination for governor of Pennsylvania, one of a group of Donald Trump-backed nominees to win his primary race on an otherwise mixed night for candidates backed by the former president.<\/p>\n
Doug Mastriano, who marched on the US Capitol building with other Trump supporters on January 6 last year, won convincingly despite concerns among many party leaders that he will prove too divisive to beat the Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro in November.<\/p>\n
Mastriano\u2019s victory underlined the influence of Trump, who gave his endorsement just four days before the vote. But signs emerged from the five states that held primaries on Tuesday night that the former president\u2019s endorsement has not carried the weight with the party\u2019s voters that he might have hoped. <\/p>\n
Two of the most high-profile Republicans he has backed \u2014 Janice McGeachin for governor of Idaho and Madison Cawthorn for a House seat in North Carolina \u2014 conceded defeat. A third, Mehmet Oz, was locked in a dead heat<\/a> for the Republican Senate nomination in Pennsylvania with rival David McCormick, the former hedge fund boss. <\/p>\n \u201cThe party is still driven by fealty to Trump, but Tuesday night showed that his endorsement is not a silver bullet,\u201d said Jessica Taylor, an analyst at the Cook Political Report. \u201cIt is more about whether the money comes pouring in on the back of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Mastriano, a state senator in Pennsylvania, led the polls for several weeks before the primary, having run a campaign focusing on false claims of fraud at the 2020 election as well as his view that abortion should be banned after six weeks. Local party leaders had reportedly tried<\/a> to get other challengers to back out of the race and throw their support behind Mastriano\u2019s main opponent, Lou Barletta, but failed to do so.<\/p>\n Experts at the University of Virginia\u2019s Center for Politics said Mastriano\u2019s victory made it more likely that Democrats would win the governorship in November.<\/p>\n Oz, a doctor and television star who received Trump\u2019s endorsement in the Senate primary, had encountered scepticism from conservative voters<\/a> for his previous statements in favour of tighter gun control and against hardline curbs on abortion.<\/p>\n With more than 95 per cent of the vote counted, Oz had a lead of just 0.2 percentage points over McCormick, a former chief executive of Bridgewater Associates. If the race is won by less than half a percentage point, it will trigger an automatic recount.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump, after he endorsed me, continued to lean into this race,\u201d Oz told his supporters on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n