Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was always going to draw a primary challenge, and the challengers are already lining up. Even though Fetterman votes with his party 95% of the time, his approval ratings run higher among Republicans than among Democrats. That small slice of independence has made him a pariah in the Democrat Party and a hero to the GOP. Fetterman is no conservative, and he is no moderate either. He simply refuses to march in lockstep on a handful of issues, and in today's Democrat Party, that's enough to end you.
I've long said that there's no way Fetterman would ever leave his party and join the GOP, and I still believe that. The real question is what happens when he faces voters again.
His first official 2028 challenger is Ahmed Moor, a DSA-backed, Gaza-born candidate. Moor launched his Senate campaign on X:
My name is Ahmed Moor and I’m running for US Senate here in PA (election 2028). I’m running to end the war in Iran and to promote the dignity agenda: free healthcare, free childcare, and affordable housing.
— Ahmed Moor (@AhmedMoor) November 9, 2026
I’m calling for accountability for genocide, for ICE and for… pic.twitter.com/TTRUprl6T7
That "dignity agenda" amounts to the usual wish list of far-left ideas that can't work. Moor wants free healthcare, free childcare, and affordable housing, along with accountability for genocide, ICE, and corruption, and protection of civil liberties. A Gaza-born socialist running on that platform against a sitting Democrat senator tells you exactly how far left the Democrat Party has moved.
It would be comforting to write Moor off as unelectable. But I got a reality check for you: Abdul El-Sayed just won in Michigan, and anyone who assumed the antisemitic socialist left couldn't win statewide in a swing state got a rude awakening. Republicans shouldn't assume Moor is unelectable either.
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Meanwhile, other Democrats are circling, according to NBC10 Philadelphia. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) is quietly building a statewide network. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) consulted with senators but announced this week that he'll stay in the House, where he stands in line to chair the Budget Committee. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) says she's still weighing where she can do the most good. So, we’ll see. But this year has made it clear that Democrat primary voters are pushing the party further left than it already is.
But here's the problem for Republicans who'd like to rescue him. I don't expect Fetterman to win his primary, and Pennsylvania holds closed primaries. GOP voters can't cross over to prop him up even if they wanted to.
After losing a primary, Fetterman could run as an independent. I suspect that an independent bid would mostly peel votes away from the Republican nominee and hand the seat to whoever wins the Democrat primary. The only other path would require the GOP to sit out the race entirely, field no candidate, and throw its support behind Fetterman as an independent.
Of course, that isn't happening, and it shouldn't.
Pennsylvania is a battleground state, Trump won it twice, and 2028 is a presidential election year. Leaving a Senate line empty would depress Republican turnout at the top of the ticket and surrender a seat the party can win on its own. No serious strategist would trade a shot at a GOP senator for a Democrat who still sides with his party on nearly every vote.
The only logical move for Republicans is to nominate a more moderate candidate who can compete statewide, then hope Democrats nominate a radical and that Fetterman endorses the Republican. It would be a bizarre turn of events, but it's the closest thing to a happy ending this story has.
The GOP can't save John Fetterman.
What it can do is make sure his party pays a price for driving him out. A party that treats even modest dissent as betrayal eventually runs out of people who can win the middle, and Republicans win elections by being ready when that bill comes due.
