‘We want to win’: Democrats face choice in key Senate race
By Marc Levy (Originally published on March 7, 2022)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — John Fetterman was sitting, alone, in the corridor outside the hotel ballroom where Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party committee members were gathered, looking every bit like someone who didn’t belong there.
Moments later, Fetterman — Pennsylvania’s sitting lieutenant governor — got trounced by more than 2 to 1 by U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb in the endorsement vote in the party’s primary race for U.S. Senate.
In barely two months, Democrats will find out if the party’s electorate feels differently about nominating Fetterman, a mold-breaking candidate much better known to Democrats than his rivals, to be its standard-bearer in a premier Senate contest.
Not only did Fetterman come from the party’s progressive wing, but he is irreverent, blunt and, well, something to see. At 6 feet 8, he is tattooed and goateed, his head is clean shaven, and he is most often seen wearing shorts — even in winter — and casual work shirts.
Fetterman leads in campaign fundraising and is also the only one in the race to have won a statewide campaign, or even run statewide. He has campaigned around Pennsylvania numerous times now, as far back as 2008, when he stumped in the presidential primary for Barack Obama.
