Harrisburg, PA – Acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman announced today the mandatory statewide recount confirmed Mehmet Oz as the winner of the U.S. Senate Republican race.

Oz received 419,999 votes, 951 more than the second-place finisher, David McCormick, whose vote total was 419,048. McCormick conceded to Oz last Friday ahead of the recount being completed.

“It’s now clear to me with the recount now largely complete that we have a nominee,” McCormick said at a campaign party at a Pittsburgh hotel.

The recount results are as follows:

• Mehmet C. Oz – 419,999 (31.1%)
• David H. McCormick – 419,048 (31.0%)
• Kathy J. Barnette – 331,864 (24.6%)
• Carla Herd Sands – 73,316 (5.4%)
• Jeffrey A. Bartos – 66,619 (4.9%)
• Sean Peter Gale – 20,251 (1.5%)
• George A. Bochetto – 14,480 (1.1%)

Oz will now face Democratic nominee John Fetterman in the November general election. Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, acknowledged last week in a statement that he nearly died when he suffered a stroke just days before his primary. He said he had ignored warning signs for years and a doctor’s advice to take blood thinners.

Chapman ordered the recount May 26 after unofficial results showed Oz and McCormick, the first- and second-place finishers respectively, had vote totals within the one-half of one percent margin (0.5%) that automatically triggers a mandatory recount under state law.

“I commend all county election workers and volunteers for their hard work and dedication over the last few weeks,” Chapman said. “They started by handling millions of ballots from the May 17 primary, then ensured a smooth recount of those ballots while millions of people eagerly awaited the results.”

All 67 counties submitted their recount results to the Department of State. The recount results reflect the tallies of all eligible in-person ballots, mail-in and absentee ballots, provisional ballots, and military and overseas ballots. The result totals do not include undated or wrongly dated ballots, which counties reported separately to the department.

The department estimates that the recount cost will exceed $1 million.

This is the seventh time the automatic recount provision under Act 97 of 2004 has been triggered, with four completed recounts.

Oz, who is best known as the host of daytime TV’s “The Dr. Oz Show,” had to overcome millions of dollars in attack ads and misgivings among hard-line Trump backers about his conservative credentials on guns, abortion, transgender rights and other core Republican issues.

The 61-year-old Oz leaned on Trump’s endorsement as proof of his conservative bona fides, while Trump attacked Oz’s rivals and maintained that Oz has the best chance of winning in November in the presidential battleground state.

Rivals made Oz’s dual citizenship in Turkey an issue in the race. If elected, Oz would be the nation’s first Muslim senator.

Born in the United States, Oz served in Turkey’s military and voted in its 2018 election. Oz said he would renounce his Turkish citizenship if he won the November election, and he accused McCormick of making “bigoted” attacks.

Oz and McCormick blanketed state airwaves with political ads for months, spending millions of their own money. Virtually unknown four months ago, McCormick had to introduce himself to voters, and he mined Oz’s long record as a public figure for material in attack ads. He got help from a super PAC supporting him that spent $20 million.

Like McCormick, Oz moved from out of state to run in Pennsylvania.

Oz, a Harvard graduate, New York Times bestselling author and self-styled wellness advocate, lived for the past couple of decades in a mansion in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, above the Hudson River overlooking Manhattan — drawing accusations of being a carpetbagger and political tourist.

The celebrity heart surgeon stressed his connections to Pennsylvania, saying he grew up just over the state border in Delaware, went to medical school in Philadelphia and married a Pennsylvania native.

The first recount in Pennsylvania history under the latest laws was conducted in the Superior Court race in November 2009, in which nine candidates were competing for four vacancies. In that election, there was a difference of 3,330 votes between the fourth- and sixth-place candidates, and a margin of 2,006 votes between the fourth- and fifth-place finishers. The recount affirmed the initial results of the election.

The second recount was ordered in May 2011 in the Democratic primary contest for a seat on the Commonwealth Court, when the margin between the two candidates was 2,116 votes. The recount affirmed the initial results of the election.

The third recount was ordered in November 2021 in the Commonwealth Court race for two open seats when the margin between the second-and third-place candidates was 16,804 votes. The recount affirmed the initial results of the election.

A recount in the 2010 Democratic primary race for lieutenant governor was averted when the trailing candidate waived his right to a recount. In 2017, three candidates for Superior Court, all whose vote totals fell within the recount margin, waived their right to a recount. And in 2019, the third-place finisher in the race for two open seats on the Superior Court waived her right to a recount.