BUCK: Kathy Barnette is running for Senate in Pennsylvania. Votes are being cast. Kathy, thanks for being with us.

BARNETTE: Oh, thank you so much for having me on.

BUCK: Tell us why should the good folks of Pennsylvania vote for you to represent them in the Senate, Kathy?

BARNETTE: Yeah, listen, I have been… I have spent more time with the people in Pennsylvania than any other. From day one, 13 months ago, I kept the main thing, the main thing, and that is getting to know Pennsylvanians. We have been traveling over 1500 miles a week and the people here, they feel squeezed. They feel unnerved. They, for the most part, know something has gone fundamentally wrong with the way our nation is being ran.

These past two years we’ve had the left pounce on us, on our businesses, on our economy, on our children and people are looking for a fighter. The next time Democrats or others want to come in and begin to restrict our freedoms, they want someone who will stand up in face of all of that and begin to speak our values and begin to push back on what oftentimes feels like the left’s narrative. And that is the reason why people are coming to me. I think they’re tired of looking at plastic politicians, and they want something authentic, and that is what I believe they found in me.

CLAY: Kathy, I saw a great quote from you where you said you’ve been running for 13 months now, and nobody paid attention to you until about two weeks ago and then everybody starts attacking you. What do you attribute that to, and do you believe that if you are the Republican nominee, you will win and keep this seat in Republican hands in Pennsylvania and what tells you that that would happen?

BARNETTE: Yeah. Listen, again, we’ve been running for 13 months. We’ve been beating down doors, kickin’ on doors. (chuckles) I was on Sean Hannity’s show seven different times before Mehmet Oz jumped into this race between his radio and television, and not one time did he ask me any of these riveting questions that he now seems to be plagued with and yet, in addition to the that — for 13 months, 1500 miles all across the state — we’ve been in a statistical tie for first place for over four weeks.

And yet many in the mainstream media, as you alluded to, are behaving as if I just crawled from under a rock last Thursday. And there’s nothing — and there’s nothing remotely true about that. We’ve always been here, always been running. But, to your question, they’ve been obsessed with the two men in the race, and weren’t paying attention to anyone else. And, you know, we had seven debates. My opponents, Dave McCormick and Mehmet Oz, they only showed up to two of those.

We had a number of forums. I can only seem them at two. They refused to get in front of the people. I was always in front of the people. I was always talking about what the people were talking about. And while those two were only talking about each other — beating each other up, all the television commercials — never once really talking about Pennsylvanians, never once really getting in front of Pennsylvanians.

And now everybody is so hot and mad that I’m about to win this race. But that’s what happens when you don’t focus! (laughs) How am I gonna win? I’m gonna double down on what we’re already doing. Even during this primary, you got my Facebook page — Kathy Barnette for Senate — you would see me in rooms filled with black people changing their voter registration from Democrat to Republican.

You will see me in downtown Chinatown. You will see news articles being written about me. I can’t read it ’cause it’s all in Mandarin, but I was down there, and they have assured me their vote is mine. You will see me in videos with Amish people walking me in front of a room full of Amish, and you will hear them say, “Listen to her. She has our back (audio drop).

And every single nook and cranny throughout the Commonwealth of these past 13 months, telling people about our values in the Republican Party because I believe we have the better values. I believe we have the better story. I just think we keep picking people who suck at telling it, and that’s the reason why we’re losing. We need better people who can tell our story because I believe we have the better story to tell.

CLAY: Speaking to Kathy Barnette. She is on the ballot today in the Pennsylvania GOP primary. Kathy, if you win not just this primary but the race overall, what is the top of your agenda to push in the Senate and to bring home — not just, of course, for your state of Pennsylvania but for the American people?

BARNETTE: You know, right now, you know, Milton Friedman said inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, and yet if you look around and listen to talking heads, they are looking to the Federal Reserve to fix what the Federal Reserve has broken. Probably almost every issue we deal with in this country is as a direct result of 22 years of real income stagnation for the bottom 90% of Americans.

And so my focus is always on the economy, and I believe it starts with clarifying the mandates of the Federal Reserve to stabilize the dollar. When you begin to pivot away from that, now we’re looking at the energy sector, right? Pennsylvania, I mean, we were walking on hundreds of years of black gold, and yet because of the hostile environment (audio drop) have created who in their right mind will invest the billions of dollars necessary to put into the ground, to pull it up out of the ground, to put it through the pipelines?

You have Janet Yellen gallivanting all over the world convincing wealth managers not to invest in American fossil fuel but she’s not telling them not to invest in Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia fossil fuels, just America and Europe. And I believe energy is freedom. Right? Ask Ukraine. Ask Germany right now. So besides the economy by starting with the Federal Reserve and stabilizing the dollar, we gotta get this thing fixed with our energy sector as well.

And, quite frankly, I believe Democrats could change all of that tomorrow if they wanted to. They would just have to admit that everything they have ever said and done has been a complete and utter failure, and what are the odds of them doing that? (chuckles) So therefore, I intend to go there with a big bright spotlight and better ideas and begin to not only work with the Joe Manchins in the Senate as well as those on my side, but to bring that narrative back to the American people.

CLAY: Kathy, congrats on the campaign so far. It’s gonna be an exciting night for many different people all over Pennsylvania and all over the country in general. Good luck, and we appreciate you taking the time to talk to our listeners right here as they make their decision about who to vote for.

BARNETTE: Thank you so much for having me.

BUCK: Kathy, thanks for being with us.