Dr. Oz Dumps Trump Imagery from Campaign Website in Apparent Distancing from Former President
The website for Mehmet Oz’s campaign to become U.S. Senator representing Pennsylvania is currently devoid of any imagery of former President Donald Trump. Normally that’s not a terribly newsworthy observation, but as the eagle-eyed folks at Axios have noted, past Trump branding and imagery of Oz and the former president together have been scrubbed from the site in what is a clear shift in campaign strategy.
Is this a proper distancing by the television host from Trump, whose endorsement appeared to play a key role in his tightly fought primary victory? Or is it standard political repositioning in advance of a general election? Either way, it’s noteworthy, particularly as Trump faces new criticism from former political allies for a myriad of reasons.
Writing for Axios, Andrew Solender reports (in signature bullet point style):
- After the endorsement, Trump was a near-ubiquitous fixture in Oz’s spots — even a series of six-second issue ads on guns, abortion and energy began with “endorsed by President Trump.”
- Oz’s Twitter account mentioned Trump more than 70 times between the endorsement on April 9 and primary day, May 17.
- On Google and Facebook, Oz’s campaign bought a barrage of Trump-focused ads during the primary.=
- Both his Facebook and Twitter accounts were emblazoned during the primary with a cover photo of Trump and Oz with the words “endorsed by Trump,” and his website had a pop-up to let visitors know he was “Trump-endorsed.”
Oz’s apparent shift to the middle of the political spectrum probably will not test support from a traditionally loyal base of Republican voters. But it may anger the former president presuming he gets wind of this, and that’s likely to cost Oz voters more than removing any images from his website.
