This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s partnership with NOTUS, a nonpartisan news organization that covers government and politics with the fresh eyes of early career journalists and the expertise of veteran reporters.
Sen. John Fetterman’s increasingly independent political moves are raising eyebrows among his Senate colleagues and giving fodder to his progressive critics, fueling speculation about whether he might leave the Democratic Party.
Fetterman said last week he would formally switch his affiliation if Democrats make opposition to Israel part of their official platform. It’s the first time the Pennsylvania senator has laid out a scenario in which he would jump ship.
Fetterman’s colleagues have doubts about his ability to win a Democratic primary. One Democratic senator, who requested anonymity to speak freely, expressed anxiety over the prospect of an unexpected party switch by Fetterman.
“I am concerned,” the senator told NOTUS.
Fetterman has pointed to recent contested primaries as evidence that the party is changing.
“Look at the kinds of people that are winning our primaries. Not just, ‘I’m pro-Palestinian,’ but, ‘I’m intensely anti-Israel.’ That’s a significant difference,” Fetterman told NOTUS.
His decision to set up a joint fundraising committee with Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, his Pennsylvania colleague with whom he shares a uniquely close bipartisan friendship, is also raising questions. Joint fundraising committees are a common way to bulk up one’s coffers, but it’s highly unusual for participants to be affiliated with different political parties, a move that didn’t go unnoticed by his colleagues in the Senate.
“I’ve never seen it before. Yes, I’m struck by it,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), who served as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told NOTUS.
Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pennsylvania), a progressive who has left the door open to a potential challenge to Fetterman once his term expires in 2028, called Fetterman’s decision to team up with McCormick on fundraising “crazy stuff.”
“We have battleground races in Pennsylvania that we are trying to flip, and now we’ve got John Fetterman helping the Republicans to raise money to beat Democrats,” Deluzio told MeidasTouch last week.
Asked to respond to Deluzio, Fetterman told NOTUS the congressman “shouldn’t criticize” because he donated money to “an accused rapist,” referring to Graham Platner, who dropped out of the Maine Senate race earlier this month following an allegation of sexual assault, something Platner denied. Deluzio’s political action committee, Yinzer PAC, gave $500 to Platner’s campaign in March, before the allegations against Platner were made public.
Fetterman downplayed the joint fundraising committee with McCormick, telling the Washington Examiner, “It’s nothing sinister.”
“It’s just — people have joint interest in the things that we happen to agree on, if we both represent Pennsylvania,” he told the outlet.
Fetterman has increasingly found himself isolated in the Democratic Party. Although he votes with Democrats on most bills and nominations, his staunch support for Israel, the Iran war and border security has irked some in his party. He seems to relish attacking Democrats, most recently lambasting progressives for their decision to back Platner in Maine’s Senate race.
Last month, Fetterman expressed regret for calling to eliminate the filibuster during his 2022 Senate run and praised former Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for defending the Senate’s long-standing supermajority requirement under President Joe Biden’s tenure.
“If we lose the filibuster, then the rights of the minority, whether that will be Democrat or Republican minority, would have effectively little to no voice,” Fetterman said in an interview with conservative podcast host Katie Miller, the wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller. “And if we become a smaller version of the House, that would have profound ramifications for the United States, and that would be dangerous. I’ll be the first to say that our entire Democratic Party was wrong about that in that cycle.”
Fetterman’s approval ratings in Pennsylvania have fallen to 19% among Democrats, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week. The same survey found that 52% of voters want Fetterman to leave the party.
The senator told CNN he couldn’t explain how “a guy that votes 90% on the Democratic line [has] 80% GOP approval. He added: “If I’m becoming more unpopular with Democrats, that’s a strong correlation of being a proud Israel supporter.”
Asked if he thought he could win a Democratic primary, Fetterman said, “I guess we’ll see.” He hasn’t announced whether he will seek another term.
Adam Jentleson, Fetterman’s former chief of staff and founder of the Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, said he believed the senator might leave the party “in order to stay relevant,” particularly in a scenario where Democrats win a Senate majority by a single seat in November.
“I think, if he is the majority-maker, he will flip, because it would give him a massive amount of attention,” Jentleson, who last year expressed concerns about his former boss’ mental health, said in an interview with NOTUS.
Jentleson said the real risk for Democrats is if a vacancy opens up on the Supreme Court. Fetterman recently voted to confirm former Sen. Markwayne Mullin as Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, so he could cross the aisle again to back a future Trump Supreme Court nomination.
“I would be the first to say that Senate seats are invaluable, but Democrats should not debase themselves by trying to negotiate with him,” Jentleson added. “If he switches, it’s containable — it will be a problem for two years but we can recoup it in 2028.”
Other Democrats were skeptical about the idea of Fetterman becoming a Republican, noting he maintains progressive policy positions on key social issues including abortion, marijuana and LGBTQ+ rights.
“He votes Democratic all the time. I mean, he’d be a bad Republican,” Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, who is friendly with Fetterman, told NOTUS.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich urged Fetterman not to leave the party.
“I would just encourage him to stay,” Heinrich said. “I think you can have policy differences, but on balance, with the exception of one or two issues, when you look at what he cares about, I think that looks a lot more like the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. He’s always, always welcome in our caucus.”
Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said the “water’s OK” on charting a different path in the Senate.
“The Democratic Party has been very good to me, allowing me to develop seniority on committees, work on the committees I’m interested in,” King said.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana), the former head of his party’s Senate campaign arm, said he found Fetterman joining the Republican conference “unlikely,” but he agreed it would be tough for him to win reelection in Pennsylvania as a Democrat.
“I applaud his moral clarity and his courage, and that’s greatly respected by voters on both sides. But it would be hard to run in a Democrat primary now,” Daines said.
History wouldn’t be on Fetterman’s side if he does decide to leave the party. When then-Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate, left the Republican Party ahead of an anticipated GOP primary loss in 2010, he provided Democrats a crucial 60th vote in the Senate, allowing them to ultimately pass the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law. But Specter’s party switch and his vote for Obamacare didn’t save him in the end. He went on to lose in the Democratic primary against then-Rep. Joe Sestak.
Berwood Yost, director of the Floyd Institute for Public Policy at Franklin & Marshall College, said Fetterman is listening to voters in a battleground state like Pennsylvania who want their elected officials to reach across the aisle. But Yost said the strategy might backfire in the current partisan political environment.
“He’s had appeal with voters many Democrats are interested in winning back,” Yost said in an interview with NOTUS. “His political brand has always been snarky — cynical in some ways. Some people read him as progressive, but he’s always been his own brand.”
“I think it’s more likely he would become —declare himself an independent — but that hasn’t worked in Pennsylvania,” Yost added. “He finds himself in a place of his own making.”