YORK – Lt. Gov. John Fetterman celebrated his “homecoming” at a campaign stop Saturday in one of the state’s most dependably red counties: York County, where he grew up.
More than 800 people attended a Fetterman rally at the Weis Markets Arena on the county fairgrounds. The south-central Pennsylvania county supported former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election with 62% of the vote.
Mr. Fetterman, D-Braddock, grew up in York’s affluent suburb of Springettsbury. He graduated in 1986 from Central York High School, a school district that has received national attention in recent years for its ban of hundreds of books, films and articles that its diversity committee had recommended following racial unrest after the murder in May 2020 of George Floyd at police hands in Minneapolis.
Mr. Fetterman’s campaign slogan is “Every county, every vote.” This is part of his strategy: Put time and energy into Pennsylvania’s rural, red counties with a goal of trimming the GOP vote totals. Those votes – plus strong turnouts in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia – should secure Mr. Fetterman the most-watched U.S. Senate seat in the country, his campaign surmises. He appeared in Beaver County on Thursday, and will visit swing county Bucks County on Sunday.
This strategy helped him win the Democratic primary for the Senate seat in May, in which he won all 67 counties and increased his support among voters in the state’s reddest counties by as much as 68 percentage points, a Post-Gazette analysis found earlier this year.
For example, Mr. Fetterman received 17% of the vote in his native York County in the 2016 primary election for the same Senate seat [he lost]. In the 2018 primary, when he beat incumbent Mike Stack to become lieutenant governor, he won with 38%. In 2022, he won 81% of the county’s vote – a fact he mentioned during his campaign stop on Saturday.
“You know how red York is,” Mr. Fetterman said. “We also know that we will hold the line in York and red counties all across Pennsylvania.”
Mr. Fetterman’s attention to the more rural and conservative parts of the state, however, drew criticism ahead of his first rallies in the state’s two major cities last month, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. (Mr. Fetterman postponed in-person campaign events for three months after he suffered a stroke in May.)
In a statement before the event, the campaign of his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, sent a list of questions for Mr. Fetterman that the campaign says have gone unanswered.
“John Fetterman has not given a sit-down, in-person interview thus far in the general election, he won't take questions from reporters, and he won't agree to more than one debate before election day," said Brittany Yanick, the communications director for Mr. Oz’s campaign. "What is Fetterman hiding? Why won't he be honest with Pennsylvania voters?”
Mr. Fetterman spoke to the crowd for about 20 minutes Saturday in front of his campaign bus. He did not speak to the press at the event.
Mr. Fetterman again tried to draw a comparison between himself and Mr. Oz: He would fight for abortion rights, public education funding, raising the minimum wage, and defending marriage equality; Mr. Oz, Mr. Fetterman claimed, is out of touch with the average Pennsylvanian and would undo those rights.
“Send me to D.C., and send Dr. Oz back to New Jersey,” Mr. Fetterman said in closing his speech.
Linda Thomas, 75, of York, was the dental hygienist at the Central York School District while Mr. Fetterman attended. She said she knew him during that time and believes he would protect public education funding and support unions if elected.
Mr. Oz and national GOP leaders have spent more than $20 million on ads in recent weeks, with many attacking Mr. Fetterman’s time as mayor of Braddock and his opinions on criminal justice while lieutenant governor overseeing the Board of Pardons. Pollsters credit these attacks as a main factor for Mr. Oz’s rise in the polls; Cook Political Report classified the race as a “Toss-Up” last week.
Ms. Thomas volunteers with the York County Democratic Party, and said she often gets questions about the attack ads about Mr. Fetterman’s record on crime.
“I get questions about that all the time, and I tell people that anybody can pay for an ad,” Ms. Thomas said. “What you need to do is listen to what he says. You know that he’s against violence. He became mayor so that he… could protect people against violence.”
Brian Keene, an author who lives in York, said he has identified as a “political independent” his entire life. He identifies with Mr. Fetterman: both men are bald, have tattoos, and wear black hoodies. He said Mr. Oz, who moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pat Toomey, doesn’t know the state and its issues. He noted reproductive rights and marijuana decriminalization as some of the top issues facing the state.
Mr. Fetterman, however, cares about these issues, Mr. Keene said: “He literally – not figuratively – literally rolls up his sleeves and wades into those debates.”
First Published: October 8, 2022, 11:35 p.m.
