Republican Mehmet Oz, the television personality and doctor endorsed by former President Donald Trump, declared himself the "presumptive" Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania on Friday, despite the state's announcement this week that the race would need an official recount.
In a video posted to Twitter, Oz thanks his supporters and calls for unity, painting himself as the winner of the primary.
"I am blessed to have earned the presumptive Republican nomination for the United States Senate," Oz says.
"I know we've got to heal, we've got to pull people together again."
But the state has not certified a winner in the primary (and news organizations like the NBC News Decision Desk have not projected a winner). Instead, the acting Secretary of State announced on Wednesday that the race would head to a recount with Oz leading former hedge fund CEO David McCormick by 902 votes.
Statewide recounts rarely result in a different candidate emerging as a winner. But there are two tranches of votes that need to be adjudicated in this situation — a batch of 10,000 military, overseas and provisional ballots that have yet to be counted, and a group of 860 GOP ballots that were sent to election officials on time but undated (McCormick's campaign is suing to compel the state to count these ballots, while the Oz campaign and the state/national Republican parties all don't believe they should count).
Shortly after the primary, Trump urged Oz to "declare victory," rehashing his unfounded claims about widespread election fraud in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
On Tuesday, the McCormick campaign out out a statement predicting the race would head to a recount, adding that "we look forward to a swift resolution so our party can unite" ahead of the fall.