HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — When Democrat John Fetterman was elected to Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, many supporters hoped he would challenge convention and the status quo.
He did and did it – just not in the way many expected.
Fetterman has broken with his party on some policy issues and taken an interest in President-elect Donald Trump, a man he called a “thug” who was “obsessed with revenge” during the 2024 campaign. Fetterman later became the first Senate Democrat to meet with Trump since the election.
In fact, Fetterman has become so comfortable with Trump that some in his party are quietly disavowing the man they supported in 2022, when the Pennsylvanian handily won a three-candidate primary and survived a stroke amid a high-pressure campaign to become the only one to become a Democrat to grab a seat in the Republican Senate this year.
Christine Jacobs, who founded Represent PA, an organization that helps elect Democratic women to the Pennsylvania legislature, said Democrats she speaks to are both disappointed and concerned about Fetterman’s affair with Trump.
Their concern, Jacobs said, is that “Trump can say he’s talking to Democrats like John Fetterman, but that won’t change what he’s doing and it will end up looking like John Fetterman is being taken advantage of.”
Fetterman’s approach reminds some Democrats of former Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both of whom fell foul of their party during President Joe Biden’s administration, became politically independent and did not run for re-election.
Still, Fetterman — who often mocked Manchin during his 2022 Senate run — isn’t the only one adjusting to the modern political reality.
Democrats are struggling with election defeats in battleground states, including Pennsylvania, that gave Trump and his party control of the White House and Congress. Democrats are considering how demanding to challenge Trump and whether to adopt some of his policies as they try to rebuild their coalition.
“I haven’t changed my core values this entire time,” Fetterman told KDKA-AM Radio in Pittsburgh on Thursday. But, he said, working with Republicans was “one of the reasons they elected me, they wanted me to do these things.”
Now Pennsylvania’s senior senator, Fetterman had a tough start to his Senate career. He was diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, a complication of the stroke, and was hospitalized for depression just a month after taking office.
Six weeks later, Fetterman returned to the Senate seemingly changed — joking with his colleagues and ditching his suit and tie for the hoodies and shorts that had long been his trademark.
He quickly caused a stir – for example when he insulted the then senator. Bob Menendez, DN.J., for remaining in office despite bribery allegations. Menendez was convicted last year.
After Hamas attacked Israel, Fetterman became an outspoken supporter of Israel on an issue that had deeply divided Democrats.
Now Fetterman is the only Senate Democrat to meet with Trump after flying to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last weekend. Fetterman said it was only sensible to meet with the modern president in what Fetterman described as a good and straightforward conversation that lasted over an hour.
“And I can only think of good things,” Fetterman told KDKA.
Trump, for his part, told the Washington Examiner that they had a “completely fascinating meeting” and that Fetterman was a “reasonable person” and “not a liberal or conservative.”
Some Democrats say Fetterman is a clever politician who recognizes political reality.
Mustafa Rashed, a Philadelphia-based Democratic strategist, said Pennsylvania should be considered a Republican state after Trump won his second victory there in three tries and Republicans defeated Democrats in runoffs in November’s statewide election.
“It’s in a red state,” Rashed said. “Of course he has to meet him. And if you want to continue to represent a red state, of course you have to meet with the president.”
Fetterman — who is among 10 Senate Democrats representing states won by Trump — stands out in other ways, too.
Unlike his fellow Democrats, he met with some of Trump’s Cabinet members and promised to vote for some. He even posed for photos with a thumbs up, something Trump often shows in photos with well-wishers.
Fetterman also doesn’t dismiss Trump’s high-profile idea to acquire Greenland, the immense Danish territory opulent in occasional earths. On Fox News, Fetterman called the Greenland purchase “a responsible conversation” and compared it to the Louisiana purchase.
He supported a Republican bill to detain illegal immigrants accused of certain crimes, helping overcome a procedural hurdle in the Senate. With opposition brewing from Democrats, Fetterman noted on Fox News that if enough Democrats can’t unite with Republicans to pass the bill, “that’s one reason we lost the 2024 election.”
Democratic strategists point out that Fetterman has built his political career largely alone and independent of the party.
As mayor of a petite town in Braddock, Fetterman became a minor celebrity because of his looks – he’s 6-foot-3 and has a tattooed shaved head – and his efforts to put the run-down former steel town back on the map.
He supported insurgent Democrat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary and ran from the left against the party-backed Democrat in the 2016 Senate primary. When the state Democratic Party tried to endorse a candidate for the three-member 2022 primary, Fetterman shrugged it off as an “insider game.”
Jamie Perrapato, executive director of Turn PA Blue, which helps organize and train campaign workers, said she is seeing widespread outrage on the left over Fetterman’s collaboration with Trump. But no one should be surprised, she said.
Fetterman was a “wild card,” Perrapato said, and if anyone thought he would join the Democratic leadership in the Senate, “he was crazy.”
Fetterman’s drift has led to rumors that he might change his registration.
Last month, Fetterman said in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” that he was not leaving the Democratic Party but that defeating Trump was part of “representing the type of state we have in Pennsylvania.” meets candidates and agrees with some of the Republican political views.
Nevertheless, Fetterman has not deviated from his core themes such as support for unions, abortion rights or LGBT rights.
He had close relationships with some leading Democrats in Pennsylvania, including former Senator Bob Casey and Jim Burn, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party. Fetterman said Fetterman campaigned demanding for Vice President Kamala Harris before she lost to Trump.
“No one can say that John Fetterman has been hedging bets for the Republicans,” Burn said, “because he campaigned for Kamala Harris across the state.”
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Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter.
