Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon best known as the host of TV’s Dr. Oz Show, is planning to run for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat as a Republican, he announced Tuesday.
His website has transitioned to a campaign website where he explains why he wants to represent the Keystone State.
"Today, America’s heartbeat is in a code red in need of a defibrillator to shock it back to life," Oz wrote. "Many of us feel like we’re in the adjacent operating room, armed with insights and already scrubbed up but reluctant to leave our quiet, serene setting for the chaos next door. But for me, stepping into the political arena is the right thing to do."
"In our time of need, we want to be surrounded by people of action more than armchair intellectuals, because a great surgeon never censors ideas and never shuts off the light that shines on our wounds, which is what happened while our nation battled the pandemic," he claimed, seeming to echo the "cancel culture" rhetoric of many Republican candidates and lawmakers.
"We have not managed our crises as effectively as past generations," he wrote in an op-ed for the conservative Washington Examiner on Tuesday. During the pandemic, I learned that when you mix politics and medicine, you get politics instead of solutions. That’s why I am running for the U.S. Senate: to help fix the problems and to help us heal."
Oz will bring a powerful name recognition, as well as his own personal wealth, to a wide-open race that is expected to among the nation’s most competitive and could determine control of the Senate in next year’s election.
Oz — a longtime New Jersey resident — would enter a Republican field that is resetting with an influx of candidates and a new opportunity to appeal to voters loyal to former President Donald Trump, now that the candidate endorsed by Trump exited the race last week.
Trump-backed Sean Parnell left the race hours after he lost a court battle over custody of his three children to his estranged wife following abuse allegations. Parnell himself took the stand two weeks ago to deny the allegations that he hurt his wife and children.
Parnell himself took the stand two weeks ago to deny the allegations that he hurt his wife and children.
Oz, 61, in recent days has told associates and Republicans in Pennsylvania of his plans, according to the two people who spoke to the AP, one of whom was told by Oz directly.
Publicly, Oz has only said through a TV show spokesperson that he had received encouragement to run.
The announcement could come Tuesday night on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, which the host previewed by saying that Oz "has a huge announcement. Hint: think midterm election.”
The Pennsylvania Senate seat, vacated by the retirement of incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is a major target for both parties, especially considering how close the results were in the state in the 2020 presidential race. Former President Donald Trump stunned the political world by winning the often reliably blue Keystone State in 2016, but President Joe Biden won the state back from Trump in 2020.
Other Republicans in the race include Carla Sands, Trump's ambassador to Denmark, and real estate investor Jeff Bartos.
On the Democratic side, Pennsylvania's Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has emerged as a formidable fundraiser and frontrunner, but Rep. Conor Lamb and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta have also mounted strong campaigns heading into next year's primary.
Oz may have to explain why he isn’t running for office in New Jersey, where he has lived for the past two decades before he began voting in Pennsylvania’s elections this year by absentee ballot, registered to his in-laws’ address in suburban Philadelphia. His longtime home is above the Hudson River in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, overlooking Manhattan, where he films his TV show and practices medicine.
Oz became a household name after gaining fame as a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s longtime talk show.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.