John Fetterman Is Listening to What Voters In His State Made Clear in 2024. If Democrats Don't Learn This Going Forward Republicans Can – And Have – Take Advantage

 

From the moment Republican party was founded in the 1850s the state of Pennsylvania was one of its biggest converts. This was always true in Presidential elections. From John Fremont in 1856 to Herbert Hoover in 1932 Pennsylvania always went Republican. Even in 1912 when the schism between Taft and Theodore Roosevelt let to an electoral landslide for Woodrow Wilson Pennsylvania chose to cast its votes for the Bull Moose rather than the Democrat.

Only in FDR's 46 state landslide over Alf Landon in 1936 did Pennsylvania go Democrat for the first time since the GOP was founded.  And in the next 13 elections it went Republican far more often then it did Democrat. After going Republican in FDR's third and fourth terms it went back to the Republicans with Dewey in 1948 and stayed their through both of Eisenhower's landslides. It went back to the Democrats in every election in the 1960s and tin the next five elections only went Democrat when Carter won the White House in 1976. Only in 1992 did it move into the Democratic column and stay there for the next five election cycles – perhaps long enough for the younger members of the party to become complacent that it was going to stay that way.

This was not the case at a state level and the party knew it. As recently as the 2006 election both Senators representing the Keystone State were Republican. Only because of Howard Dean's 50 state strategy in 2006 did the Democrats manage to triumph over a Republican who had been one of their biggest adversaries during the 1990s and 2000s when Bob Casey defeated Rick Santorum by nearly seventeen points. In that elections Republicans did spectacular in a series of deep red states, including Missouri, Montana and Ohio.

In the aftermath of the 2008 election  Republican Arlen Specter who had been one of the most bipartisan Senators in Congress chose to switch parties because he didn't think he could survive a challenge in a Republican primary. He didn't expect that he would be challenged in a Democratic primary.  Nevertheless progressive Joe Sestak chose to run against Specter in the Democratic primary. His major argument: not sufficiently progressive.

 Sestak was opposed by almost the entire Democratic establishment and chose to run against him. Sestak managed to destroy Specter's reputation when he argued that the move was made of 'self-interest'. The fact that Specter had managed to defeat the likely Republican candidate  in a primary Pat Toomey in 2004 and would likely do so in the general was irrelevant as was Specter's long history in Congress. Sestak defeated Specter and then narrowly lost to Toomey in the general.

Toomey would run for reelection in 2016 when of course everyone expected Hilary Clinton to trounce Donald Trump that fall. That didn't happen in large part because for the first time since George H.W. Bush in 1988 Donald Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania, albeit by less than 45,000 votes out of nearly six million cast in that state. Toomey barely beat Democratic candidate Katie McGinnity winning by barely 1.5 percent in what was the second closest election race of the 2016 cycle. Trump actually did better in some parts of Pennsylvania than Toomey did, so there's an argument McGinnity made it on Trump's coattails.

However in October of 2020 Toomey announced he wouldn't seek reelection. This led to an opening that the Democrats managed to find and in 2022 John Fetterman managed to narrowly beat Dr. Oz to help the Democrats in their best midterms in sixty years.

But by that time the party had begun to shift considerably to the left, something that had already cost the Democrats seats in the House even during Biden's reelection and were a factor in them losing it in 2022.  Under the Obama administration  the party had essentially abandoned the 50 state strategy and almost every Democrat who had been elected during Dean's tenure had lost their seat. Almost every Senator in a red state had been defeated by the 2018 election with only four members of that group – Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown and Casey still in the Senate.

Manchin announced he would not seek reelection in West Virginia in late 2023 after becoming an increasing punching back by the left during Biden's term. This made what was almost certainly going to be a difficult map for Senate Democrats even harder regardless of whether Biden was the nominee or when Harris ascended in 2024.

This proved to be the case as Brown and Tester lost their reelection bids. Bob Casey's race was one of the closest and wouldn't officially be called until two weeks after election day. Casey ended up losing to Dave McCormick by less than 15,000 votes out of nearly 6.8 million cast. Trump won again won Pennsylvania, this time by a much larger margin then he had against Clinton in 20216 carrying it by over 120,000 votes over Harris. Once again, the argument could be made that he managed to carry the Republican Senate candidate to victory.

And during this election two seats that had been Democratic in Pennsylvania were flipped to Republican with Ryan McKenzie defeating Susan Wild in the seventh district and Rob Bresnahan defeating Matt Cartwright in the eighth. There were now ten Republicans representing Pennsylvania as opposed to seven Democrats.

But it has to have been Casey's defeat that would have sent a message to Fetterman, He'd managed to win by nearly a quarter of a million votes in 2022 and two years his Democratic colleague from that state had been beaten. The voters of Pennsylvania had sent a very clear message to the electorate and to Fetterman: we support all things Trump and the Republican Party.

So when Fetterman made clear in the aftermath of Trump's return to power that he was willing to work with the President he was simply doing what a good, elected official does. The people had spoken and regardless of whether he agreed with them, he had to respect their voices.

The same can't be said for the progressive wing of Fetterman's party who in the aftermath of Trump's return to power has facilitated between denial and anger, even when they contradiction each other. They deny that Trump is President and essentially insist that any 'real' American refuse to acknowledge his existence even if that means visiting the White House on a ceremonial visit. At the same time every time he ties his shoelaces it is considered a crime against humanity so horrible that they consider it the job of every 'real' American to stand up and point out that what he is doing is wrong and call him the worst sort of names.  This would seem to be a circle that can only be squared by the activist and it is one that the politician must resist.

But during the Biden administration the Democratic Party increasingly began to indulge its most childish members in the caucus (all in the House with almost none in the Senate) in a desperate effort to try and win this base for future generations. Considering that during that both the attitude and policies of so many of those official were increasingly destroying the parties reputation among working class voters and rural America – both of which they needed to win in order to maintain power  - one would think when Harris was defeated, mostly because she achieved the lowest figures in either category of any Democrat Presidential candidate in the history of polling, one would think the party would reject and move towards the center.

Instead they spent the majority of 2025 indulging the worst aspect of their bases behavior, abandoning the maturity that many people (the author included) had found to be one of their biggest draws before 2016 and if anything even more so afterwards. Their behavior increasingly resembled that of the worst aspects of Gingrich's Republicans and the Tea Party, along with McConnell's decision to say that his objective was to make "Obama a one-term President'.  The long-term damage to the party is unclear at this point and may not be clear for years if not decades. What it has done is increasingly isolate the moderates particularly Fetterman.

To be clear Fetterman has been voting the Democratic Party line at least ninety percent of the time. He didn't vote to confirm any of Trump's initial cabinet appointees, didn't vote for the Big Beautiful bill and has made it clear he is opposed to many of the major policies of the administration. What he hasn't been willing to do is the kind of petulant behavior involving the shutting down of the government over much of 2025 and today.

He refused both in March and September to join with Senate Democrats to filibuster the budget over Obamacare subsidies, leading to the longest shutdown in history. He was one of the seven Democrats in the Senate to cross party lines and vote to reopen the government after the 2025 elections. He has refused to vote for the partial shutdown of the government to not fund Homeland Security these past two months and earlier this week voted in favor of a bill to refund it.

All of this has caused him to be reviled by his fellow Democrats as well as many of the people in his home state who feel he has betrayed his voters. The fact that he's doing exactly what Pennsylvania voters said they wanted in 2024 doesn't enter into the equation. He's explained this multiple times and one can sense his frustration. Many wonder if he will even stand for reelection in 2028 and even if he does, there is much talk of a primary. The fact that this exact scenario played out in 2010 – and ended in disaster for the Democrats – would be clear to rational observers but progressives today are no more rational than Joe Sestak was in 2010.

The Democrats increasing tilt towards far left ideals has done more damage to them in the Senate then it has in the House to this point. It has already taken all of the red state Senators out of the equation and its now starting to come for the swing state ones. This year it may not be a factor: the only Democrat running for reelection in a state Trump won two years ago is Jon Osoff in Georgia and the GOP is having great difficulty coming up with someone to run against him. The map is more favorable to the Democrats this year and while it is improbable that they will have a majority by the end of November with each passing week it seems to this observer more likely.

If that happens it will be because the Democrats are doing what they did when Bob Casey came to the Senate in the first place: challenging the Republicans on their own turf, particularly in red states. I've already written about Mary Peltola doing so in Alaska and in the weeks to come I will write about their efforts not only in Texas and North Carolina, but also in Iowa and Ohio.  Not all of them may succeed but the ones that do will because the Democrats are attempting to win the moderates and centrists in a way they really haven't in at least a decade, possibly longer.

If that happens perhaps Fetterman will be less isolated in the Senate as by necessity many of these Democrats will have to be moderates in order to win in the first place in states like these. It's not a coincidence that by far the greatest heat coming on Fetterman in the Senate is from the deep progressive wing, not just Bernie Sanders (who was in the class of 2006 and has been ungrateful ever since) but Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen. All of them are also in the bluest states in the country as well as some of the smallest.

And it is worth remembering that the Justice Democrats gave up trying to make a dent in the Senate after the 2020 election. The last one to earn even a nomination from the party was Paula Jean Swearingin and she was flattened by Shelly Moore Capiton in the biggest Republican margin during that cycle. Betsy Sweet would attempt to win the primary in Maine that same year. She couldn't get 23 percent of the vote against Sara Gideon.

The lessons of Pennsylvania, not just of Fetterman but indeed of the Senate during the 21^st century, need to be ones the Democratic Party learns from because the left has proven again and again they won't. The biggest one is one that was a given in their party not that long ago. Elections are when the voters send a message to their elected representatives which way they want the country to go. When either party refuses to accept this – either out of a decision to hold power or as an attempt to mobilize their base – it is a dereliction of duty and it should be condemned no matter which party is guilty of it.  Fetterman clearly got that message after the 2024 election. The left of America have not and trying to convince them otherwise is a futile act.

Second the decision to primary incumbent Democrats can be just as damaging to the party as primarying incumbent Republicans has been. Joe Sestak found that out very clear in 2010 and there's no reason to assume that if Fetterman is primaried it will play out any differently. Considering that so much of the Democrats hope of gaining a seat in Texas depends on who ends up winning that state's primary you'd think it’s a lesson they'd take to heart. (Then again Republicans have almost never learned that lesson in some states, so maybe we shouldn't be that surprised it hasn't stuck yet.)

Third is the idea of bipartisanship. Considering that it was once applauded by Democrats when the McCains and Specter's crossed party lines to help the Democrats one would have assumed that the same applied when Democrats do the same for Republicans. It must be made clear that there is far more room on the right across the country then there is on the left and that for so many Representatives and Senators they have to do what the voters in their states want in order to keep their seats.  The left refused to tolerate this with Joe Manchin and as a result we may never see a Democrat elected in West Virginia in our lifetimes.  The left may refer to them as DINO's but someone who's a Democrat ninety percent of the time has to be considered better than someone who's a Republican a hundred percent of the time.  I can assure you the Republicans don't care how they get a Republican in Congress as long as they have one. Democrats, as opposed to left-wing activists, can't afford to be so picky.

Last is that is important to remember that general elections – particularly Senate ones – must be won in the middle as opposed to primaries that can be one on the extremes. This is especially true in states that are increasingly purple as Pennsylvania is clearly becoming. And if you push the center away by going to the left – as we've seen time and again, the Republican party will gladly welcome them with open arms.  The far left has said that is the voter's problem but seeing as well live in the same country I'd say it's everyone's. 

John Fetterman is doing what the people of Pennsylvania elected him do in 2022 and what he took away from them in 2024. In a few months' time the voters will be sending the country another message and while Fetterman is not on the ballot, he will be paying attention to it like every other elected official can and should. Don't blame him for doing what the voters of his state told him to. Send a message to make it clear what he should do now. He's listened before. He will again.