In Pennsylvania, the GOP primary contest to replace retiring Senator Pat Toomey remains an uncertainty as frontrunners Mehmet Oz and David McCormick jockey to gain any advantage possible in their currently unfolding recount, but the Democrats aren't necessarily in any better shape with just more than five months until November's general election.
Their nominee, current Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman, swept every county in the commonwealth on primary night in May — despite the fact that their nominee was in the hospital after suffering a stroke and having emergency surgery to implant a pacemaker to regulate his heart rate.
At the time, questions about Fetterman's health and fitness were brushed aside as attempts by Republicans to sow doubt in voters' minds, but now Pennsylvania Democrats are the ones raising questions.
As an NBC News dispatch from the Keystone State explains:
Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman does not have a timetable for returning to the campaign trail, sparking some worries in the party nearly three weeks after he suffered a stroke and surgeons implanted a pacemaker with a defibrillator to regulate his heartbeat.
Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, has appeared publicly only in recorded video since the stroke. His wife is speaking to the media on his behalf. And the situation has prompted Democrats to refresh their knowledge of state ballot-replacement law — the deadline is in August — according to two party sources who said they don’t anticipate a candidate switch being necessary.
Still, some of Fetterman’s fellow Democrats say they are worried both about his health and what they describe as a lack of transparency from his team about just what happened when he was hospitalized last month.
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So, the Democrats' choice to run for U.S. Senate — in a must-win race for Democrat hopes to keep control of the upper chamber starting in 2023 — doesn't have a plan to return to campaigning, has only appeared once via pre-taped video in three weeks, and his staff refuses to be fully transparent about what his prognosis is.
One "veteran Democratic strategist" in Pennsylvania who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity said "people I've talked to — myself included — don't know what to make of" the lack of information about Fetterman's condition and questions about what Democrats could do to potentially switch candidates before November. "It's not like Fetterman has close institutional allies, so Dems are calling around wanting to ask the question, but no clue where to get a sense of how serious it is," the strategist added.
NEWS: Fetterman lack of health transparency has fellow PA Dems
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) June 2, 2022
-looking at state ballot-replacement law.
-Trying to get answers about his hospitalization
-"A lot of us Democratic Party types are very nervous about it" one PA official tells @NBCNews https://t.co/DOErMgmwcs
It's not surprising that some Pennsylvania Dems are looking into how a nominee can be replaced on a ballot — another "who asked not to be named to avoid blowback from his party" told NBC News that "a lot of us Democratic Party types are very nervous about it." And if PA Dems are worried about the health and fitness of their nominee for U.S. Senate, those fears are sure to trickle down to Pennsylvania's Democrat voter base.
Fetterman, who's been out of the hospital since May 22 and has reportedly received positive evaluations from doctors during post-op checkups, still has only provided a vague timeline for his return to the trail — "soon," according to his campaign staff.
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