Pennsylvania supporters say Fetterman’s evolution has left him isolated
Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who built his early political identity through confrontational criticism of Donald Trump, appeared by video at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on September 9 to introduce the state’s Republican senator, Dave McCormick, and to express support for Trump’s protectionist trade agenda. The Guardian reported that the appearance was “greeted with rapturous applause” by Republicans, gathered at Trump’s behest to mobilize enthusiasm for November’s midterm elections amid sagging poll numbers.
Two video messages, produced eight years apart against the same physical backdrop, convey political messages that seem a world removed from each other. A 2018 video for Fetterman’s successful campaign to be the state’s lieutenant governor opens with footage of Braddock, Pennsylvania’s landmark Mon Valley Edgar Thomson steelworks, set to the soundtrack of Trump vowing to revive lost industrial jobs. Fetterman then appears on camera accusing Trump of using places like Braddock “as a prop.” “Donald Trump hasn’t shown up since then, and he won’t because he never cared about places like this,” Fetterman says in the 2018 clip.
In the September 9 message, Fetterman described himself as “a commonsense Democrat” who is “always trying to reject the extremes in socialism and that anti-American way of life.” He called McCormick “the kind of senator that gets the job done” and, gesturing to the iconic US Steel mill visible over his shoulder, said: “Right back over my shoulder, that’s the iconic US Steel mill, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that will work together and will work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life right here in the steel valley.” The Braddock steelworks has dominated the local landscape since 1875 and was the first in the United States to be established by the steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Braddock, a down-at-the-heels town of fewer than 2,000 residents on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh, was where Fetterman served as mayor for more than a decade and where he built his reputation as a highly unorthodox politician who broke with convention to attract investment to a shattered local economy.
Criticism from within the Democratic Party has steadily increased since Fetterman took his Senate seat in January 2023, seven months after suffering a debilitating stroke while campaigning in Lancaster that left him with acute speech and communication challenges. He later underwent treatment for clinical depression, a common post-stroke condition. The criticism intensified after Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, with Fetterman repeatedly praising the president’s protectionist policies and appeal to working-class voters. While most Democrats recoiled at Trump’s second presidential victory, Fetterman visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago days before the inauguration. Since then, Fetterman has gained a high profile as a strident advocate for Israel, defending the country from charges of genocide in Gaza even as fellow Democrats openly criticize or distance themselves from it. Fetterman has previously said he would only abandon the Democrats if they became “the anti-Israel party.”
The Guardian reported that Fetterman’s changing political profile has coincided with allegations that he has shown scant interest in doing his job as a senator. The Wall Street Journal reported that Fetterman declined to meet a group of paralyzed military veterans to discuss legislation that could affect their care, citing illness, yet was well enough on the same day to keep an appointment with Fox News to discuss Israel and the war with Iran. The Journal further reported that Fetterman refused to meet with officials from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to discuss Medicaid cuts. The Guardian said it contacted Fetterman’s office about the Journal’s reporting. In the Senate, the Guardian reported, Fetterman has avoided close ties to fellow Democrats while striking up friendships with Republicans such as McCormick and the conservative Alabama senator Katie Britt.
For Democrats, the September 9 appearance may be the last straw in a series of perceived betrayals that have fueled a clamor to block Fetterman’s bid to run for re-election in 2028, when his Senate seat is up for grabs. Fetterman’s evolution has been so stark that some Democrats fear he will defect to the Republicans — jeopardizing the party’s hopes of regaining control of the Senate — despite his disavowals of such intentions. Longtime activists say his stock within the party has dropped to the point where his chances of being re-elected as a Democrat are zero.
“What happened to the guy that beat up on Donald Trump in 2018 because he didn’t care?” said Mike Sturla, who served as a Democratic state legislator from Lancaster for 34 years and hosted a fundraising dinner for Fetterman’s 2022 Senate run after being captivated by his earlier campaign video and subsequent performance as lieutenant governor. “Trump was still popular at the time and people were reluctant to attack him,” Sturla added. “So I was really impressed. I was like, ‘Good lord! Finally, somebody’s willing to just stand up and punch the guy on the nose.’” Sturla said Fetterman’s latest video created “the perception that he’s complicit” with Republicans. It was a far cry, Sturla said, from Fetterman’s time as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, when he visited each of the state’s 67 counties in a controversial campaign to legalize marijuana — a cause that, the Guardian reported, “enamored him to liberal-minded progressives and gave him a statewide platform to launch his Senate campaign.”
Lynn Miller, a longtime Democratic activist who served as Fetterman’s de facto campaign manager in Lancaster County during his Senate campaign, said Fetterman triumphed in a primary over Conor Lamb, a Democratic representative seen as an establishment candidate, because he appeared progressive and “different.” Miller recalled waiting to introduce Fetterman to an expectant audience at Millersville University, near Lancaster, only for the event to be canceled at the last moment; she later learned that he had suffered a stroke. “I liked everything I heard,” Miller said. “He really emphasized that he was different, that he wasn’t a typical politician, and that just appealed.”
Miller now describes herself as “disappointed” and is demanding the return of her campaign donations. “His alliance at times with President Trump is unforgivable,” she said. “He says he’s a commonsense Democrat. Well, dude, that’s not how you sold yourself five years ago. I’ve put together the list of all the campaign contributions that I’ve made, and tried emailing addresses that I’ve been given. I want my donations back.”
Miller also commented on the changed public role of Fetterman’s wife, Gisele. “I really liked how he deferred to Gisele. I liked the role that she was playing,” Miller said. “But she has like disappeared from social media. She used to have a huge presence on social media promoting him, things about the family, etc.”
Yet in Braddock, where Fetterman still lives and sports a tattoo of the town’s zip code (15104) and of the dates of murders that occurred on his watch, residual loyalty endures. Some residents cite the Braddock Free Store, set up and run by Gisele Fetterman to give away donated goods free of charge, as an example of the couple’s community commitment. The makeshift facility is emblazoned with messages of peace and harmony that are replicated throughout the town center — and which contrast with the blighted environment, in the form of grandiose but derelict buildings and empty lots. Approached at the store on Braddock Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare, Gisele Fetterman declined to be interviewed, adding that her husband was in Washington. Speculation has swirled about the state of the couple’s marriage, with some noting Gisele’s reduced profile after having previously played a critical role in her husband’s campaigning.
Cheryl Johnson, who runs Aunt Cheryl’s Cafe in a community center building Fetterman helped purchase with $50,000 of his own funds, argued that the senator was being criticized for bipartisan cooperation that would have been unremarkable in a less-polarized era. “Some of the things Senator Fetterman has done, I think at another time would not have been criticized as much,” Johnson said. “What has he done that has hurt the Democrats? He and McCormick are the two senators from the state of Pennsylvania. There was a time where you knew politicians went across the aisle. He has never been a cookie-cutter kind of guy. We knew he was different from the beginning, the way he presented himself — for instance, in fashion and how he dressed. He never cared if he offended people. But some of the things he and his wife have done for this community have been great. The fact that he would even come to a community like this says something.”
Other Braddock residents offered mixed reflections. Al Boss, a 76-year-old optician who runs a local optician’s office, recalled Fetterman using the bulk of his 6-foot-8, 325-pound frame to single-handedly rescue Boss’s car from a snow drift. “I was driving a little Mercedes sports car and had got trapped in a snow drift,” Boss said. “He practically lifted the backside of the car up and pulled me out of the snow. I don’t even think he was mayor then.” Chris Baldy, a 63-year-old materials chemist from Pittsburgh visiting Boss’s optician’s shop, said he had been “pleasantly surprised” that Fetterman’s Senate performance had aligned with his own Republican sympathies. “When he was coming in, knowing this area and what he had done here, I was concerned that he was very far left,” Baldy said. “Now I see what he is doing is more what I would consider to be common sense.”
Jeanette, a 68-year-old retired nurse who declined to give her last name, said she had moved to Braddock after being attracted by its newly built apartment blocks and the reputation that Fetterman’s actions as mayor had generated. The move had turned sour, she said, and Fetterman was no longer visibly present in the community. “This is not a good place. I want to leave,” she said, citing night-time crime, drug-taking and urgent home repairs that go unattended. Referring to Fetterman, she added: “I don’t trust him any more. I used to like him and talk with him. You would see him every other day when he was trying to get elected. Now I haven’t seen him for a whole year, maybe two.”
The Allegheny County Democratic Committee, which covers Braddock, did not respond to requests for comment. Members of the Braddock borough council and the state representative for the area, Abigail Salisbury, also did not respond after the Guardian visited their offices. Analysts say such reticence may be partly caused by a wariness of driving Fetterman into defecting to the Republicans, a move that could stymie Democratic hopes of recapturing control of the Senate after November’s midterms.
Mike Weidinger, a veteran activist in GOP-dominated Lancaster County with extensive statewide connections, wrote off Fetterman’s re-election chances when his seat comes up in 2028. “He’ll never be elected again in this state as a Democrat,” Weidinger declared. “If he wants to run for the Senate again, he will be primaried and he will lose. Among Democrat activists he’s toast as a Democrat. I think that’s a pretty common opinion across the state.”