Lt. Gov John Fetterman looked like he had locked up the Pennsylvania Senate race. It’s a state where Democrats have the better track record of winning elections. Republicans picked Dr. Mehmet Oz to help defend the Senate seat vacated by outgoing Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, which is a sign that the bench for statewide candidates is relatively thin for the GOP. Fetterman entered the summer with a commanding double-digit lead over Oz. It’s now shrunk to where Oz is within the margin of error, and Fetterman’s continued bleeding of support doesn’t look like it’s dissipating. The lieutenant governor’s record on fighting crime and public safety is controversial, to say the least, with calls to abolish life sentences for murderers.
The struggling economy has the Pennsylvania suburbs gearing toward voting Republican in November, which indicates that the GOP could be riding a red tsunami into next year’s congressional session. That helps Oz’s camp mightily, but the next big moment for this election, and quite possibly the decisive moment, will be this upcoming debate later in the month. The real question is, will it even happen, given Fetterman’s struggling health condition and his latest radio hit raised more questions about his fitness for office?
Fetterman is recovering from a severe stroke before the primary election day. He also received a pacemaker—and it’s been a bungled, sloppy mess on the campaign stump ever since. It’s so bad that Joe Biden sounds cogent compared to Fetterman, which, coupled with the president’s dismal approvals, an economy in recession, and high inflation—has chipped away at Democrats in crucial races. Toss in Fetterman’s soft-on-crime approach, and you can see why suburban voters are not keen on this man.
And while his health has been front-and-center for weeks, this tangent about him not being on a heart transplant list doesn’t provide further confidence that this man is healthy enough to be the next senator from Pennsylvania. One way to dispel these rumors about his deteriorating health condition is to release his records which Oz has done. Fetterman has thus far refused.
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HOST: Hey, John, there's a school of thought out there. Forget about your stroke recovery. What about your heart and there's doctors, you've had two devices, including a defibrillator, that at some point, you will need a heart transplant. Is that accurate, sir? Or is that just more rhetoric?
FETTERMAN: No, that's just not that's not accurate. And again, that's just more lies, whether it's a lie against my record on crime, whether that is all these other issues? No, that's just not...that's just simply not true. What, again, it gets back and let me just say, gets back to again, ridiculing or are making fun of somebody that's just had a health challenge much the way many of us listening have had.
There is a concern that Fetterman might back out of the debate, given the absurd list of demands, which included practice debates with the moderators. The stage is set for him to withdraw, which wouldn't be shocking given his declining poll numbers.
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