Kathy Barnette rules out 2024 Pennsylvania Senate run

March 16, 2023

Kathy Barnette, a Pennsylvania Republican who placed third in the Republican Senate Primary in 2022, said Wednesday she will not be running for Senate in 2024 to challenge Sen. Robert Casey Jr.

Barnette told Politico that she didn't want to "play coy" about her intentions and would not be on the ballot for 2024.

“Instead of playing coy, I wanted to come out and say I am not interested,” she said. “I thought about it and I wanted to be real clear.”

Barnette has been working on the presidential campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy at the grassroots level, using some of the same techniques that saw her place third in the 2022 race despite a shoestring budget.

Republican party leaders in the state will no doubt be relieved that Barnette will not be in the race as they try to unite voters around Dave McCormick, who narrowly lost the 2022 primary to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who then lost to John Fetterman in the general election.

It will be a hard road to unseat Casey, who has been in the Senate since 2007. His father was also a longtime moderate Democrat senator in Pennsylvania.