John Fetterman has a big choice to make

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) looks increasingly uncomfortable inside the Democratic Party, which fits him today less like a well-worn hoodie than a rumpled suit.It’s a “quandary,” according to one Pennsylvania political insider, and it’s one Fetterman is going to have to resolve before he runs for reelection. His spats with fellow Democrats could jeopardize his chances at securing a second term two years from now. “If John Fetterman gets into a one-on-one [Democratic] primary, he’s got real trouble,” Charlie Gerow, a longtime Republican strategist in the state, told the Washington Examiner. “In a multicandidate field, he does much better.”Democrats nominated Fetterman and elected him as a progressive, defeating former Rep. Conor Lamb in a 2022 primary and then Republican Mehmet Oz that November.But since arriving in the Senate, Fetterman has, with growing frequency, clashed with fellow Democrats over Israel. He has been an outspoken critic of his party’s leading socialists, dismissing New York City Zohran Mamdani as a “clown,” dubbing former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner “P-hustle” in reference to the erstwhile Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) challenger’s sexting scandal, and likening Michigan Senate candidate Abdul el Sayed to Platner.Maine and Michigan are crucial states for Democrats to win if they are going to regain control of the Senate in the midterm elections.“He seems to want to fight back against the DSA encroachment of his party. Witness his broadsides against the Nazi tattoo guy and now the new nominee there [Troy Jackson],” veteran Pennsylvania Republican political consultant Christopher Nicholas told the Washington Examiner. “‘Pontiac Platner’ [his nickname for el Sayed] is a terrific slam. My Dem friends here loved when he was a social media s***poster focused on the GOP. Now that he’s switched his aim, they aren’t so happy, are they?”But with the significant exceptions of Israel, averting Democratic-led government shutdowns, preserving the filibuster, and his occasional openness to confirming Trump administration nominees, Fetterman still has a predominantly liberal voting record.On Wednesday, Fetterman was noncommittal about Senate Republicans grilling Anthony Fauci on his pandemic response. “I’m not there to embarrass him or to defend or praise him,” he told CBS News. “To me, it’s like, ‘Hey, I’ll talk about my regret during that time,’ you know, when I was [lieutenant governor] at the time.”Earlier this month, Fetterman was skeptical of President Donald Trump’s primetime claims about noncitizens voting. These two issues alone are red meat to the Republican base and could prove important to securing a Trump endorsement in a GOP primary. “I’d be a s****y Republican,” Fetterman admitted to Politico earlier this year.“I doubt he switches to the GOP, as he still votes 90% with the Senate Dems,” Nicholas said.Any competent conservative primary challenger could capitalize on Fetterman’s deviations from the Republican line. Gerow described Fetterman as being in “the unenviable position of having strong support across the board but not the support within either party to make it to the general election ballot.”There is precedent for this in Pennsylvania. The state’s longtime Republican Sen. Arlen Specter was a centrist who was to the left of the party on abortion and a host of other policy matters, though his record was more conservative than Fetterman’s. (Specter actually switched from Democrat to Republican in the 1960s.) He barely won his primary for a fifth term in 2004, needing strong support from then-President George W. Bush to get across the finish line, and seemed unlikely to prevail a sixth time.Specter returned to the Democrats in 2009 to give then-President Barack Obama a filibuster majority for passing Obamacare in exchange for Obama’s support in a Democratic primary. Specter’s experience is a cautionary tale for Fetterman: Specter lost his leverage as just another Democrat rather than an important Senate swing vote; Democrats lost their 60-vote majority in the special election to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts; Democrats soon afterward lost interest in Specter and failed to clear the primary field for him; Specter then lost the Democratic primary.What if Fetterman could avoid a primary altogether? “I don’t think there’s any question he’d do well in a general election,” Gerow said. “He’s very popular.”A better precedent for Fetterman might be Joe Lieberman, a longtime Connecticut senator with a mostly liberal voting record who lost in the 2006 Democratic primary just two years after serving as the party’s vice presidential nominee, mostly because of his support for the Iraq War and Israel. Lieberman then ran in the general election as an independent against Democrat Ned Lamont and a weak Republican. Lieberman won reelection.Fetterman paid tribute to other Democrats turned independents before him on Monday. “History has vindicated former senators Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) and Joe Manchin III (West Virginia), two people who were vilified by the Democratic Party for their support of the filibuster and whose courageous efforts damaged their political careers,” he wrote in his pro-filibuster Washington Post op-ed.Manchin urged Fetterman to follow the independent path in an interview with the Washington Examiner earlier this year. “It’s liberating,” the West Virginian said.Fetterman would need to make his decision to go independent before the primaries, because Pennsylvania has a sore loser law that would probably prevent him from bolting after a defeat. But there would be other obstacles.“Could he become an independent and then caucus with Dems, a la Bernie and Angus King? Sure,” Nicholas said. “Becoming an indie would allow him to bypass our primary season here, which means he would have about 8-10 weeks over summer of 2028 to get enough ballot sigs to get on the fall ballot. Those are due on the first Tuesday in August.”Gerow cautioned that ballot access as an independent would be “daunting” because Pennsylvania has a “very, very high bar” for signature gathering. “Fundraising becomes inordinately difficult,” he added, noting the state has “seven media markets, and two of them are expensive.”“It is unclear how he would be able to raise money if he did all that,” Nicholas concurred. “The GOP would be supporting their candidate, who would most likely not be mucho pro-labor, pro-marijuana, and 1,000% pro-choice. The Dems would hate it, as he would most likely pull more Dem votes than GOP votes.”The 2028 presidential race would also be going on at the time, with Pennsylvania a likely battleground state once again. Trump carried Pennsylvania in two of the last three presidential elections. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), a fellow centrist, may seek his party’s nomination.Schumer may need Fetterman’s vote to remain in charge of the Democratic caucus after the midterm elections.THE MAMDANI LEFT ISN’T GOVERNING — IT’S CLOUT CHASING“People in our caucus very much like him and respect him, and we’re a big-tent party. We can have a lot of different views in that party,” he told reporters, calling Fetterman “a very good member of Congress.”“John has always defied the odds,” Gerow said. “People respect that he’s independent, free-thinking, and that nobody owns him.”