- John Fetterman could be a midterms hero for Democrats.
- The goateed, 6'8 lieutenant governor locked up the nomination for Pennsylvania's Senate race.
- He could flip the seat for the Democrats, but there are several headwinds against the party.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is awaiting an opponent in what will be one of the most hotly contested races of the 2022 midterms.
A November victory for Fetterman would take the seat off the board for the Senate GOP, with Sen. Pat Toomey retiring.
As Fetterman celebrated away from supporters Tuesday night hours after having a pacemaker procedure, he awaited the results of the GOP primary race between frontrunners David McCormick and Dr. Mehmet Oz. At press time, the pair remained neck and neck with thousands more votes to be tallied.
Whether Fetterman faces off against the Trump-endorsed Oz or former hedge fund CEO McCormick — whom his campaign described as "the only true, America First candidate" — his strengths will still be the same and the national climate should keep it a tough race for any Democrat, longtime Pennsylvania pollster G. Terry Madonna told Insider.
"He's a different kind of politician," Madonna, the co-creator of the Franklin & Marshall College poll, said in a phone interview.
"Six-foot-eight, baggy shorts, t-shirts, tattoos — a strong progressive, there is no doubt about that — but he doesn't fit the traditional genre of a politician," he continued. "So my way of thinking about this is that given that he's going to have a certain appeal to heal to sort of non-traditional voters — uh, particularly millennials and younger voters."
Despite all those unique qualities, Madonna added that Fetterman would likely run into the same headwinds as other major Democratic candidates: Inflation, supply chain issues, and President Joe Biden's poor approval rating.
Key areas for Fetterman will be the counties around Philadelphia — which President Joe Biden won while Republicans picked up county-wide races in 2021 — and his old stomping grounds in Western Pennsylvania, where he served as the mayor of Braddock from 2006 to 2019.
Fetterman appeals to many because of his non-traditional style — an asset amid the watered-down national brand of the Democratic Party — and that's likely to help keep Fetterman's momentum going, said Madonna.
"I think that has a certain appeal in the era in which we live in," Madonna said, "where voters look at conventional politicians and think, well, it's the same old, same old."