dr. oz, he s in a dead heat against lieutenant governor john fetterman. it was trump s endorsement that led to dr. oz winning the republican primary by less than a thousand votes. dr. oz will share stage with trump and republican candidate doug mastriano. according to polls he is seen as too extreme by half of pennsylvania voters and is losing by double digits in this race. sharing a stage with trump could alienate moderate and independent voters dr. oz has been trying to court by denouncing extremism on both sides. you ve got to unite. i m a heart surgeon, not a politician. to deal with the biggest problems we face which in my case is a broken heart, i ve got to bring everyone together. can t have us divided. we need the biggest sense of balance to washington. washington is getting wrong with radical ideas.
pennsylvania. joining me to talk about this is former republican congresswoman from virginia, barbara comstock and cnn spokesperson, karen finney. karen, i spent lots of time in georgia as well. we ll talk about that. let s talk about the senate race between fetterman and oz. a recent marist poll puts fetterman slightly ahead of oz, 5 1 % to 45 %, but the polls have been close throughout all of this. look at the data for the same poll. the top issue for pennsylvania voters is inflation. karen, let me start with you. we got a better than expected jobs report yesterday, but do you think inflation has just been on the minds of voters for so long, gas prices and so on, that this is just a very steep hill to climb for democrats? well, a couple of things. i think, you know, when we talk about inflation, one of the things that is on voters minds is who has a plan to deal with inflation. who is going to focus on trying
i think the effects of her stroke and recovery were evident, but at the end of the day, that s still a question for pennsylvania voters as to whether that is going to make the difference, and i don t think that is determined quite yet. the first question is, you know, how many voters in the small group of swing votes, these things are not usually decisive in senate races. debates are less about that evening itself and more about creating moments that out last the evening, that continue to define the race. in the case of fetterman, there are a number of clips that are pretty rough for him that are circulating all over the air waves and it may not be great for him. one answer in particular he talked about fracking that drove home how much he was struggling to communicate a coherent response, and you have the other side of it, dr. oz had some bad moments for himself. one clip in particular has been making the rounds where he talked about, you alluded to it
and folks in the political scene, why did he do this? fetterman. why did he decide to debate. it was obviously going to showcase the lingering effects from the stroke. listen, i think he would have gotten criticism even if he had skipped it. this was a no-win situation for fetterman. seems like they were banking on sympathy and understanding from pennsylvania voters that he s obviously struggling from this. people struggle from all sorts of problems with speech and health. i think they were banking on the fact that people would understand that. we ll have to see, there was an early poll that came out last night, pittsburgh situation suggested that oz won the debate handily, something like 80/20, something of that nature. so, i mean, listen, fetterman was holding on to a very tenuous lead. and i imagine the race will tighten in the days ahead. oz seemed to almost come off as a bully. we should stress, though, fetterman s doctors say he will