Lt. Gov. John Fetterman will win the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary, CNN projects.
Fetterman was facing off against US Rep. Conor Lamb and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.
Fetterman, a six-foot-eight, tattooed former mayor who lives in an old car dealership and has a habit of wearing basketball shorts in the snow, appeared to have the upper hand against the more moderate (politically and stylistically) Lamb.
Some Democrats worry that Fetterman’s progressive politics will make it harder for them to flip the open seat, but others say his populist bent could help win back voters they’ve lost in the Trump era.
Fetterman’s win caps a bizarre final few days for the lieutenant governor, who checked into a hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Friday and was found to have had a stroke. Fetterman has been in the hospital ever since and while the candidate said he was “on my way to a full recovery’ on Sunday, he underwent a nearly three-hour surgery on Tuesday to impact him with a pacemaker that includes a defibrillator.
While the hospital stay injected a level of uncertainty into the race, Fetterman had long been the frontrunner in the race, holding a steady polling lead over Rep. Conor Lamb and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.
And nearly all Pennsylvania Democratic voters CNN spoke to in the final days of the campaign — including when Fetterman was in the hospital — said the stroke would not change their vote.
For the lieutenant governor, who lost in the primary when he ran for Senate in 2016, the win is the cap on a high-profile rise from small town mayor to statewide elected official. Fetterman served as mayor of Braddock, a small town near Pittsburgh, from 2006 to 2019, a role that elevated him as Democrats have struggled to win blue collar voters.
Source: www.cnn.com