For most losing political candidates, the months that follow defeat can be a time for reflection and dissection—time to pick apart what went wrong, to write a book, to secure a cushy gig as a cable-news contributor, or even to plot a comeback.
But for Mehmet Oz, it’s been a time to pretend his disappointing Senate campaign, and his newfound political ambitions altogether, never happened.
After a winter spent recuperating from his five-point loss to Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)—and hidden from the internet legions that had gleefully dragged him for months—Oz is slowly re-emerging.
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Gone is Oz the MAGA-acolyte partisan. Back is the famous, friendly TV doctor—or at least Oz hopes.
Instead of doing Fox News hits, Oz is once again working with HealthCorps, a teen-focused health nonprofit organization he founded well before his political career. He’s posting photos on social media and touting work that he says “has helped millions of teens thrive, to support our nation’s next generation.”
Beyond that, Oz attended a health conference. Tweeted about the need for more nurses. Promoted efforts for Americans to recover from addiction.
In February, when an earthquake wreaked havoc in Turkey—where Oz is a citizen—he traveled to the devastated area. It’s unclear what role he actually played in recovery efforts, but he did take several photos next to injured patients, sometimes showing off his stethoscope.
On his YouTube page, Oz has spent the past five months recirculating old clips of his television show, dropping one or two per weekday. Prior to his election loss, the page hadn’t posted anything since 2021. Now, it’s re-upping the classics of the genre, from “Causes And Cures For BLOATING!” to “Amazing Stories Of Animals Saving People” to “Are You Addicted To Fast Food?”
Judging by his and his family’s social media presences, it seems Oz isn’t worried about maintaining the Pennsylvania brand he tried, and largely failed, to cement during the campaign. For the most part, it appears he’s been morphing into a Florida man, spending time in his Palm Beach estate.
Nowhere to be found, however, is any indication is the same person who spent last year campaigning with Donald Trump, decrying the “failing economy, crime-ridden streets, and our energy crisis,” bashing transgender athletes, and vowing to fight “against the woke liberal mob.”
While other failed candidates from the 2022 cycle have toyed with running again—including Pennsylvania’s GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano—Oz seems entirely uninterested.
Perhaps those candidates had less to lose.
Oz, a protégé of Oprah Winfrey, built a media empire and an array of connections with the rich and powerful. Soccer moms filled his studio audience and raved over his medical advice. It all made him a fortune, which he boosted with deep ties to the companies whose products he pushed.
In running a polarizing political campaign, Oz risked all of that. Now, it appears he’s trying to get it back.
Indeed, after the election, reports emerged that Oz attempted to restart his daytime show, which ended in January 2022, before he kicked off his Senate bid. But his jaunt into politics soiled his marketability with a mainstream audience.
Perhaps more importantly, his Senate run entailed months of scrutiny from the press, and Oz’s opponents, dissecting his more dubious medical claims and business practices, tarnishing his reputation further.
All 13 seasons of his show were also produced by Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. Winfrey endorsed Fetterman in November.
There’s another question looming over Oz’s pivot: whether he stayed in Pennsylvania. His conveniently timed move from New Jersey to Pennsylvania—which happened only when there was a Senate vacancy—became a key point of contention in his race.
Fetterman and Democrats repeatedly—and gleefully—attacked Oz as a carpetbagger and poser. At one point, Fetterman hired Snooki, of Jersey Shore fame, to call him out in a viral video. And the Democrat’s campaign spent months posting memes trolling Oz for the change in residence.
It’s difficult to discern how much time Oz has actually spent in Pennsylvania since the November election. In at least one post shared to his social media accounts in April, Oz showed himself visiting the Belmont Charter Network in Philadelphia as part of his work with HealthCorps.
But his family’s Instagram posts suggest he’s spent plenty of time away from the Keystone State. His daughter, Daphne Oz, posted photos this past Thanksgiving from the family’s now-famed New Jersey mansion, suggesting Oz himself was likely in attendance. His son, Oliver, posted a photo in early December from the same home.
This January, Oz posted a photo of himself visiting a Discovery senior living community. There are no Discovery senior living communities in Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, but there are more than a dozen in Florida, where Oz has another residence.
In March, Oz himself posted a photo celebrating St. Patrick’s Day from his Palm Beach mansion. And in April, Daphne, a health influencer in her own right, posted a photo that showed the family—including her father—spending time in the Florida residence, too
Oz has multiple mansions. He has 10 homes, in fact—eight of which he forgot about while running for Senate last year. During the campaign, he claimed to live in a $3 million home in an upscale Philadelphia suburb that he bought in late 2021.
The former candidate’s ties to Pennsylvania aren’t the only remnant of his campaign that seems to have disappeared: his campaign website is gone, too.
Oz used DoctorOz.com when he was a TV doctor to promote his show, before transforming it into his Senate campaign’s homepage. While it’s common for losing candidates to maintain websites long after the race ends, Oz’s site now redirects to his YouTube page to amplify more hit videos, like “The Buyer’s Guide To Rotisserie Chicken.”
Notably, other websites for losing 2022 candidates, like those of Herschel Walker, Blake Masters and Adam Laxalt, are still live. Others, like Mandela Barnes’, have been repurposed to fit the candidates’ current work.
Oz did not respond to a request for comment sent to HealthCorps’ media contact.
But even as Oz attempts to pivot back into the medical personality that built his fortune, onlookers aren’t always so receptive. While he still boasts fans in the comment sections who’ve lauded his semi-return to public life, many are still trolling the once-candidate with the same jokes that hung over his Senate run.
Below Oz’s most recent tweet showing off his trip to the Philadelphia charter school, one user simply said, “OMG are you grifting schools now?”
Another added, “Great, now GTFO back to NJ.”
