Fettermania Is Running Wild in Pennsylvania

Last week, John Fetterman’s chief of staff Krysta Sinclair Juris walked out the door, becoming the latest in a string of staff departures that would sink most politicians. The hulking Pennsylvania senator’s mental health struggles have been laid bare in unflinching detail. He’s become what many political consultants would call a “loose cannon.” And yet, against all logic and beltway wisdom, Fetterman’s popularity with swing voters and Republicans is surging.

Back in November, I wondered whether Fetterman could successfully pivot from his progressive base without losing what made him appealing in the first place. The answer, apparently, is that he didn’t need to pivot at all. Instead, he’s leaned into being exactly who he is – mental health struggles, light workdays, Senate dress code violations, and all – and voters are eating it up.

Internal polling shows that Fetterman has taken a hit among Democrats, and New York’s Ross Barkan recently argued that Conor Lamb poses a formidable primary challenge. With respect to Barkan, that’s the kind of analysis you get when you’re thinking like a D.C. insider rather than someone who actually talks to voters in southwestern Pennsylvania.

This is what the coastal commentariat doesn’t get: my relatives and neighbors love Fetterman’s candor. These are the same people who once dismissed him as a rich kid from south-central Pennsylvania cosplaying as a Yinzer. Now they see something different: a Howard Beale-style, “straight talk express” pol telling everyone he’s mad as hell and won’t take it anymore, however messy and offensive that might be.

Remember, Fetterman already defeated Lamb in their last primary matchup. Lamb tried everything, including raising justifiable concerns about Fetterman pulling a gun on a black jogger during his time as Braddock mayor – an incident that should have been politically fatal. Instead, I heard moderate Democrats around here actually applauding what they saw as Fetterman taking community safety seriously. That’s the kind of cognitive dissonance that drives political professionals crazy but makes perfect sense to anyone who grew up in Uniontown, Scenery Hill, and Bentleyville.

Facing mounting criticism, Fetterman has done what he does best: refuse to go on defense. He’s smartly playing the mental-health victim card while thumbing his nose at Senate traditions. He’s been skipping events and mocking the formality of the institution he serves in. Any reasonable person might ask whether someone dealing with serious mental health challenges should be serving in the Senate at all. It’s a fair question, though American history is littered with elected officials who governed through health crises. The late U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Strom Thurmond, to name only two, were incapacitated for most of their final terms in office. 

But here’s where it gets interesting, and where elite opinion diverges most sharply from what I’m hearing on the ground. While party stalwarts clutch their pearls about senatorial decorum, the purple-state voters I talk to, many of them older boomers who aren’t quite red but aren’t blue either, appreciate how well Fetterman is getting along with junior Sen. David McCormick. The two have been appearing together, debating cordially to the point of seemingly agreeing on most issues, acting like actual colleagues rather than partisan warriors. In an era of scorched-earth politics, this comes off as refreshing rather than weak.

None of this should work. A senator with documented mental health struggles who is hemorrhaging staff and flouting institutional norms while acting buddy-buddy with his Republican colleague should be political roadkill. But Fetterman has built his career on doing things that shouldn’t work.

Remember: after his catastrophic debate performance against Mehmet Oz, where his stroke-related communication challenges were on full display, no political handicapper gave him a chance. I’ve long thought that he was ill-qualified for the job he’s doing, and I haven’t been quiet about it. The guy won anyway.

Maybe that’s the lesson. In an era when voters claim to hate inauthenticity above all else, Fetterman is giving them the straight tea. It’s sloppy. It’s unconventional. But it’s undeniably real.

The 6’8” senator has made a career out of defying political gravity, perhaps because he has enough sheer size to exert his own gravitational pull. It doesn’t make sense by any traditional political calculation. But what about John Fetterman has ever made sense? He’s a Harvard-educated trust-fund kid who convinced many working-class Pennsylvanians he’s one of them. He’s a progressive on LGBT issues respected by some gun-owning conservatives. He’s a senator with serious health challenges who’s more popular than many of his healthier colleagues.

I’m done counting him out. In Pennsylvania politics, where the only rule is that there are no rules, Fettermania isn’t just surviving – it’s thriving.

Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work.