- Donald Trump suggested that Dr. Mehmet Oz should "declare victory" in Pennsylvania.
- He also implied that the other GOP candidates were cheating to win.
- Trump's suggestion comes amid a series of high-profile endorsement flops in recent primary races.
Former President Donald Trump ranted in a series of Truth Social posts on Wednesday night, pressing Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz to call himself the winner of the state's Republican primary.
"Dr. Oz should declare victory," Trump wrote in one of his posts.
He then went on to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the vote count in Pennsylvania, baselessly alluding to cheating by the GOP candidates running against Oz, the man he backed.
"It makes it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they 'just happened to find,'" Trump said, parroting the former president's baseless claim that widespread voter fraud had robbed him of a second presidential term.
Oz is currently neck and neck with hedge fund manager David McCormick in the race, with ballots still being counted.
Trump's call for Oz to declare victory recalls his actions in November 2020, when he tried to assert that he had won the election even as votes were still being tabulated in several states.
On Wednesday night, Trump insisted that "Oz won." In other posts, Trump also railed against the "Fake News Media" and Fox News, criticizing the latter for being "way off on the count and timing in the Oz vote."
According to Decision Desk HQ, Oz has a 0.2-percentage point lead — amounting to 2,567 votes — over McCormick with an estimated 94% of the expected votes counted. This slim margin means that the race will go to an automatic recount if it continues to hold.
Just two weeks ago, the former president touted the value of his "unparalleled" and "unblemished" endorsement record, claiming that Republican candidates who want to win should fear him.
However, that claim was undermined this week after controversial freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn was ousted from office by his primary challenger, Chuck Edwards.
Meanwhile, another Trump-endorsed political candidate, Charles Herbster, lost his gubernatorial race in Nebraska last week amid allegations of sexual assault from eight women. In Idaho, the Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin was defeated in her bid to unseat Gov. Brad Little.
Trump has made 183 endorsements since leaving office, per Ballotpedia, many of which have yet to play out. While most of the Trump-endorsed political candidates have seen victory, many had been running in uncontested races.