Given that she dramatically underperformed the other two statewide Democratic candidates that ran against insane Republicans I would say that it and her other mistakes impacted the outcome.
Or Lake, the candidate more used to being in front of a camera and manipulating the media, could have gotten a lot of momentum off the debate and won.
Then again Oz still lost despite easily winning his debate, so perhaps the real lesson here is simply that debates don't matter?
Also she actually outperformed the Dems running for AG and Superintendent.
Debates matter.
Oz lost because he is a Muslim.
He severely underperformed in Trump country.
Lake is a media personality, but her positions and ideas are crazy.
Hobbs doesn't have any charisma and was a weak candidate and was probably hurt by skipping the debate, but this year the voters rejected the candidates with crazy ideas and elected even incompetent people.
Are you calling rural Pennsylvania bigoted? Most voters probably didn't even know that Oz is a Muslim. Fetterman hammered him on being out of the touch and the crudite video was an easy thing to use against him with small town voters.