Two Berks commissioners endorse Jeff Bartos for U.S. Senate seat

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Two Berks County leaders announced they are throwing their support behind Jeff Bartos to win the Republican nomination for the hotly contested U.S. Senate seat.

Commissioners Christian Leinbach and Michael Rivera released a joint statement this week outlining why they are endorsing the Montgomery County real estate developer for the nomination and what they believe he can bring to the position.

“The election is an opportunity for Republicans in Pennsylvania to deliver the Senate majority, with a candidate who knows our values and our communities, which is why we’re proud to support Jeff Bartos,” the commissioners wrote. “A born and bred son of Berks County, no one has spent more time understanding our individual needs than Jeff Bartos.”

Bartos grew up in Berks, attending schools in the Gov. Mifflin School District before transferring to Lancaster Country Day School for his high school education. After completing college and law school, he eventually settled in Montgomery County when he landed a position working at a large law firm in 1997.

The commissioners said Bartos, who ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, earned their support by how he handled the COVID pandemic.

“He spent the pandemic saving our Main Street businesses, and Jeff will take our values to Washington,” they wrote. “Pennsylvania has a fighter in Jeff Bartos, and we’re proud to endorse him for Senate.”

The race features an open field, with the incumbent not appearing on the ballot. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey announced in October 2020 that he would be retiring from the post.

The race for the Senate seat has drawn a lot of interest and an enormous amount of money, with more than a dozen candidates on each side of the political aisle throwing their hat into the ring. The seat is seen as crucial to both parties as they compete for control of the chamber and is expected by many to be one of the most expensive Senate races in history.

The primary is May 17.

Barnette, Bartos ‘stood out’ in GOP senate debate

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NEW CASTLE — During the hour-plus drive to New Castle from South Fayette Township in Allegheny County, Ron Betz asked his son, Zach, if he wanted to know who were the media-ordained Republican front-runners for U.S. Senate and Pennsylvania governor.

Zach turned down the offer. He was going to see some of them soon enough anyway.

“I make sure to do my own research,” said the 19-year-old high school senior, who will cast his first ballot May 17 in the Republican primary, possibly for candidates who took the stage Wednesday at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in New Castle.

The Betz family, and a crowd that filled nearly all of the building’s lower level, got to hear from Senate candidates Kathy Barnette, Jeff Bartos, George Bochetto and Martin Rosenfeld.

Three of the most prominent candidates — former Ambassador Carla Sands, television doctor Mehmet Oz and hedge fund executive and treasury official in the George W. Bush administration David McCormick — did not attend the debate.

Their absence put them in for some pointed criticism from the candidates who did turn up.

+2 GOP Senate candidates agree on most issues NEW CASTLE — The four Republican U.S. Senate candidates in the debate Wednesday at Scottish Rite Cathedral in New Castle agreed on most issues…

“You can’t save Main Street if you can’t find Main Street,” said Bartos, who was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018 and helped to create the 30-Day Fund, which offered low-interest loans to companies affected by the COVID-19 pandemic economic restrictions.

He championed economic development, saying, “Our number one export is our children. It should be energy.”

The candidates — all seeking to replace Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who opted not to seek re-election this season — fielded questions from political strategist and commentator Jeffrey Lord on their legislative priorities, EPA regulations and their effect on the energy industry, whether they would support retaining U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell as the party’s Senate leader, the Afghanistan withdrawal and foreign affairs, the national debt, impeaching President Joe Biden, gun control legislation, Dr. Anthony Fauci and COVID-19, China, social media platforms, and election security.

While the candidates on stage targeted, if only rarely, those who stayed away, they were collegial toward one another. More than once, a debate participant said they agreed with one or more of the others.

“The worst candidate on this stage would be better than the best Democrat,” said Bochetto, a Philadelphia attorney and Pennsylvania boxing commissioner who went to court to prevent removal of the city’s statue of Christopher Columbus and filed his candidacy papers this week.

Barnette, author of the book “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America,” and a conservative commentator, said — in response to the McConnell question – that it was time for some “new blood” in Washington D.C.

“People should not go to D.C. and the only way to get them out is when they die,” she said.

Most of the candidates’ answers tracked with Republican orthodoxy, with very little disagreement. On the McConnell question, Rosenfeld — a former deputy sheriff in Elk County and current constable — said he appreciated the current Senate minority leader’s refusal to vote in favor of removing former President Donald J. Trump from office but then took issue with McConnell’s condemnation of Trump’s actions during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I would have a difficult time supporting McConnell,” he said.

Bartos, who listed term limits as his top national legislative priority and pledged to serve no more than two terms if elected, said McConnell already has a strong legacy.

“Thirty or 40 years from now, we’ll still be talking about the conservative judges appointed by President Trump and pushed through by Senator McConnell,” he said.

After the debate, Ron Betz said he thought all of the candidates — but especially Bartos and Barnette — did well.

“I enjoyed the debate tremendously,” Ron Betz said. “I really liked Kathy and Jeff.”

Zach Betz agreed with his father’s assessment.

“Kathy really stuck out to me and Jeff, too,” Zach Betz said.

Of the four candidates on stage, he said those two best embodied what he expected from Pennsylvania’s next U.S. senator.

“We really just need a politician with a backbone,” he said. “Someone focused on serving instead of the next election.”

Barnette, Bartos ‘stood out’ in U.S. Senate debate

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Jonathan Richard Lepisto, 74, of Mount Dora, Florida, passed away Friday, Jan. 7, 2022, due to complications after heart surgery. He was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, to Carl Adam Lepisto and Elma Karki Lepisto on May 4, 1947. He is survived by his son, Karsten (Maiko) Koch of Springfiel…

Hedge Fund CEO Files to Run for Open U.S. Senate Seat in Pennsylvania

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What to Know Hedge fund manager David McCormick is from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, but has lived for years in Connecticut, where he was CEO of Bridgewater Associates.

He is a West Point graduate and Army veteran, and recently purchased a home in Pittsburgh.

McCormick joins a crowded Republican field of candidates in the May primary for the party’s nomination to run in the November general election to replace outgoing Sen. Pat Toomey.

David McCormick, who recently resigned as CEO of the world’s largest hedge funds, Connecticut-based Bridgewater Associates, has filed federal paperwork to enter the race for U.S. Senate in his native Pennsylvania.

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The billionaire financier with connections to the former Bush and Trump administrations, already began airing TV commercials across Pennsylvania before he jumped into the race. He also recently bought a house in Pittsburgh and held closed-door meetings with Republican Party brass and donors.

David McCormick, who recently resigned as CEO of the world’s largest hedge funds, Connecticut-based Bridgewater Associates, has filed federal paperwork to enter the race for U.S. Senate in his native Pennsylvania. He spoke with NBC10’s Lauren Mayk for his first local television interview.

McCormick joins a crowded field of candidates vying to win the party’s nomination in the May primary and take on whoever wins the nomination among the equally crowded field of Democrats.

McCormick’s entry into the race was one of the worst-kept secrets in Pennsylvania politics. His former company wrote on its website following his departure that McCormick “made the decision to leave Bridgewater Associates in order to consider running for the open Senate seat in his home state of Pennsylvania.”

The 56-year-old had worked for Bridgewater Associates and lived in Connecticut since 2009.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The race to replace retiring two-term Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in bellwether Pennsylvania is expected to be one of a handful of competitive contests across the country this year that will determine control of the Senate.

The primary election is May 17.

The Republican primary field is in flux with the exit of former President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate, Sean Parnell, and the entrance of Mehmet Oz, the heart surgeon, author and TV personality.

Other candidates — including conservative activist Kathy Barnette, real estate investor Jeff Bartos and Carla Sands, Trump’s former ambassador to Denmark — have been making the rounds of party functions for most of the past year. Bartos toured the state by bus.

Democrats running include John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, and third-term U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb of suburban Pittsburgh.

McCormick has connections across finance, government and politics.

He is a former senior official in President George W. Bush’s administration and is married to Dina Powell, who was a deputy national security adviser in Trump’s administration before she returned to work at investment bank Goldman Sachs.

In Pennsylvania’s Republican circles, Christine Toretti, Pennsylvania’s longtime Republican national committeewoman, and former state party chair Rob Gleason are among McCormick’s backers, as are fundraisers Pat Deon and Bill Sasso.

Whether McCormick’s high-level support will translate into victory in the May 17 primary election remains to be seen.

‘Why lie to me?’ Pennsylvania Senate race rivals attack carpetbaggery

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By MARC LEVY

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The title of “Pennsylvanian” may not carry quite the cachet of declarations of fighting socialists or getting tough on China, but it’s increasingly the go-to weapon for Republican primary candidates in one of the nation’s premier U.S. Senate contests.

A wide-open race for the swing-state seat being vacated by two-term Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania has attracted wealthy and well-connected transplants, and homers Jeff Bartos and George Bochetto are seizing on it.

Bartos, a real-estate investor from suburban Philadelphia, derides the transplants as “political tourists” and repeatedly reminds audiences he is a “lifelong Pennsylvanian.”

Bochetto, a Philadelphia lawyer who has lived in the city for 45 years, suggested that his out-of-state rivals shouldn’t bother spending millions to try to convince voters they really are Pennsylvanians.

“They should be honest about it and just flat out say, ‘Look, I haven’t lived in Pennsylvania and I’m not a citizen of Pennsylvania, but I’m coming in because there’s a provision in the Constitution that allows me to do so,’” Bochetto said in an interview. “And that’s fine. But why lie to me?”

And spending millions they are: Carla Sands, Mehmet Oz — the heart surgeon best known as the host of TV’s “The Dr. Oz Show” — and David McCormick are on the air across Pennsylvania, pursuing a Senate seat that is practically out of reach for Republicans in the blue states they are fleeing.

It’s not clear yet whether carpetbaggery will be a pivotal issue, or whether Pennsylvania’s Republican voters — in an increasingly nationalized political environment — care how deeply their elected representatives are tied to the state.

On Saturday, the candidates begin making their multi-week tour of closed-door question-and-answer sessions with regional caucus members of the state Republican Party. The first stop is the party’s central caucus.

“Certainly that’s going to be an issue for some people,” said Richard Stewart, a central caucus co-chair. “And we’ll see how big of an issue it is.”

To Bartos, it is.

He has raised it time and again, including on Monday night in a telephone town hall.

“I want to say clearly for all the other people running out there who are just getting to Pennsylvania for the first time, just visiting places for the first time: You cannot save Main Street if you don’t even know how to find it,” Bartos — the party’s 2018 nominee for lieutenant governor — said.

While he was raising money for struggling Pennsylvania businesses during the pandemic, his competitors were “living in mansions overlooking Manhattan, on the Gold Coast of Connecticut or in a foreign country,” Bartos told the crowd.

The field is newly open after Sean Parnell, the candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump, dropped out after losing a custody battle in which his estranged wife, under oath, recounted stories of Parnell’s abusive behavior.

Trump has not moved to endorse again.

Sands, 61, a Pennsylvania native, spent the majority of the last four decades in California — pursuing acting and helping run her late husband’s real estate investment firm — before giving generously to Trump’s 2016 campaign and drawing a post as ambassador to Denmark.

She sold her homes in Malibu and Bel Air, returned to the U.S. in early 2021 and rented a condo overlooking the Susquehanna River with views of the state Capitol.

Oz, 61, is a longtime resident of Cliffside Park, New Jersey, where his mansion overlooks the Hudson River across from Manhattan, but now says he is renting his in-laws’ home in an affluent Philadelphia suburb.

Oz’s main claims to Pennsylvania are that he grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, not far from Philadelphia, went to medical school in Philadelphia and married a Pennsylvania native.

McCormick, who grew up in Pennsylvania before leaving to attend West Point and serve in the Gulf War, has not formally declared his candidacy. But he bought a house in Pittsburgh, where he spent a decade in business before leaving in 2005 to take high-level jobs with the administration of then-President George W. Bush.

Since 2009, he has lived in Connecticut, where he worked for one of the world’s largest hedge funds, Bridgewater Associates. He just resigned as CEO to pursue his campaign.

McCormick, perhaps more than the other two, has played up his Pennsylvania roots, calling himself “Pennsylvania true” on his exploratory campaign website and airing TV ads that describe his boyhood on his family’s Christmas tree farm in Bloomsburg.

There have been growing pains.

Oz, like many candidates, toured the Pennsylvania Farm Show in recent days and, in a video posted on social media posing next to a pile of potatoes, proclaimed that “what I’ve also learned is that Pennsylvanians are very patriotic.”

The primary is barely four months away, May 17.

Bochetto, a lawyer, said he would rather talk about himself and why he is a great candidate, and let his rivals shoot themselves in the foot.

Asked if he thinks they’ll turn around and leave Pennsylvania if they lose the primary, Bochetto said, “There is no doubt in my mind. Not a doubt.”

Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timelywriter.