Several of the candidates backed by former United States President Donald Trump (2017-2021) won key victories on Tuesday in a primary day that served as a thermometer for the November legislative elections.

Trump showed that his stamp of approval continues to drag the Republican base to the polls and that, therefore, he is not a figure of the past but of the future of the party.

In Pennsylvania, a pendulum state and of great importance in any election, the Republican nomination for Governor was won by Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who has repeated Trump’s lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election on the campaign trail, which he won Democrat Joe Biden.

Mastriano, 58, financed some of the buses that transported to Washington the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In addition, he has prevented journalists from covering his campaign events and has been photographed on several occasions with supporters of the QAnon conspiracy movement.

THE RIGHT TO ABORTION WILL BE DECIDED AT THE POLLS

Mastriano will face current Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shaprio, who won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, in November.

The winner of that race in November will likely be the one to decide whether or not Pennsylvania women have access to safe abortions, as the US Supreme Court appears poised to end federal protections of that right in the coming weeks.

It will then be up to the states to decide on abortion and, in the case of Pennsylvania, voters will have to choose between the anti-abortionist Mastriano and Shapiro, who has promised that he will veto any attempt by the Republican majority in the state parliament to restrict abortion. straight.

Meanwhile, also in Pennsylvania, the count continues to show no clear winner in the Republican primary for one of that state’s Senate seats.

According to CNN, there is currently almost a technical tie between businessman David McCormick and surgeon and TV world celebrity Mehmet Oz, who had been endorsed by Trump.

Before midnight, McCormick, who is leading by a handful of votes, addressed his supporters and asked them to go home because the recount will continue on Wednesday.

FETTERMAN, A NOT-TRADITIONAL POLITICIAN

The Republican candidate who wins those primaries will face John Fetterman, who won the centrist Conor Lamb in the Democratic primaries and who was in the hospital on election night after suffering a heart attack last week.

Fetterman has fled during the campaign from those who tried to classify him in one extreme or another of the Democratic Party.

With his more than two meters tall and tattooed arms, he also does not have the appearance of a traditional politician and has assured on several occasions that this is one of his strengths.

In a statement, US President Joe Biden expressed his support for Fetterman on Tuesday and assured that the party is now united around his figure.

RESULTS IN NORTH CAROLINA

In North Carolina, the results for Trump-endorsed candidates were mixed. For example, Ted Budd won the Republican nomination for one of the state’s two Senate seats, but Congressman Madison Cawthorn lost his seat in the primary.

Cawthorn, 26, had angered the party apparatus by claiming in a podcast that other Republican lawmakers had invited him to an orgy in Washington.

He is also part of the most extremist wing of the party and was one of the legislators who participated in the rally that Trump gave outside the White House on January 6, 2021 and in which he invited his supporters to march to the Capitol to avoid that Biden’s electoral victory be certified.

In total, five states held primaries this Tuesday: Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Oregon.

The day marked the start of the primary season for the November 8 election , in which Democrats will defend their narrow minorities in both houses of Congress.

These midterm elections usually serve to measure the level of approval of the president, in this case Biden, because they are held two years after his inauguration.

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