The Republicans’ Black Candidate

Supported by a rainbow coalition — from former Trump strategist Steve Bannon to the Club for Growth, which has, in contrast, broken with Trump — Kathy Barnette is her party’s nightmare: she could be a surprise win in the primary only to run aground in the November election.

The U.S. Republicans’ certainty of winning in the November midterms is marred by the risk of losing some of their conservative colleagues if they put forward a candidate who is too extreme or untrustworthy. Many such cases are beginning to emerge, generally linked to a desire to avenge Donald Trump and determined to replace members of Congress not aligned with his positions with those who are more faithful and more radical. But there are still other anomalies, and those involving the Senate, where the majority hangs on a single seat, are more concerning — such as Eric Greitens, trailed by scandal in Missouri but still leading in the polls. The thorniest issue, however, is Pennsylvania, in the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.

Businessman and military veteran David McCormick seemed certain to win the Republican nomination, until Trump decided to cut him off and give his blessing to surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, a well-known TV personality who is little loved by Pennsylvania conservatives. Oz has been pro-abortion and in favor of gun control in the past.

While the two battle it out, attacking each other with mutual accusations, Kathy Barnette, a Black woman on the extreme right, has gained ground as she tells an incredible story in a TV commercial. Born to a 12-year-old mother, Barnette discovered as an adult that she was the product of rape. But she fought back: a military career, a family, a renewed sense of balance. It’s a moving story, and with conservative America galvanized by an imminent Supreme Court ruling that could make abortion illegal, her ratings have risen from 5% to 25% days before the primary — higher than ratings for McCormick, slightly less than those for Oz.

It would be a wonderful tale of political renewal were it not that Barnette’s biography is hazy on the details (nobody knows where she comes from, where she taught, where she lives; there is no information on her military career), while she has littered social media with invectives against Muslims and accusations of systemic racism by white people.

Unexpectedly supported by a rainbow coalition — from former Trump strategist Steve Bannon to the Club for Growth, which has, in contrast, broken with Trump — Barnette is her party’s nightmare. She could be a surprise win in the primary, only to run aground in the November election, unpalatable even to some of the moderate right.