Why John Fetterman is Succeeding Where Hillary Clinton Couldn't

Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA)

Increasingly over the past few weeks, Democrats have become far more bullish about the chances of them holding on to the Senate majority.  You saw it in the way that they quickly coalesced around Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, essentially ensuring that he'd not only win, but win an impressive margin in the upcoming primary.  You saw it in the way that they have taken a very tough stance against JD Vance in Ohio, where Rep. Tim Ryan is fighting an impressive (though still uphill) battle to flip a red state that was once the nation's bellwether.  But nowhere is it clearer that Democrats like their chances than in Pennsylvania.  The Keystone State is looking increasingly not just like the best chances the Democrats have of flipping a Senate seat this cycle, but the best chance either party has at flipping a Senate seat.

The contest in Pennsylvania couldn't be starker, and not just in the politics of the two men running.  Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, it is often said, cuts an atypical profile as a politician, at least physically.  The 6'9" former college football player doesn't necessarily look like a central casting politician, but like most Democrats running this cycle, his resumé looks like someone who makes sense as a senator.  A longtime mayor, he won statewide office in 2018 after running surprisingly well in the 2016 Democratic Senate primary.  He sailed through the primary, and is now running as a center-left candidate who supports filibuster reform, women's reproductive rights, & gay marriage, and wants to eliminate the former to codify the latter two.

The Republican candidate, however, is anything but typical.  Mehmet Oz, for starters, does not hail from Pennsylvania like Fetterman, who was born-and-raised in York, about a 30 minute drive south of Harrisburg.  Oz, instead, is from New Jersey, and has never run for or held public office before.  Instead, he is most well-known to Americans for his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show under the billing "Dr. Oz" and for his controversial program of the same name, where he has been heavily criticized by the medical community for using pseudoscience and giving platforms to antivaxxers.  He is incredibly wealthy, and while he has been involved with Republican politics since at least 2008 (when he was donating to the McCain campaign), he largely got involved in this race thanks to his involvement with Donald Trump.

Trump is an interesting counter to Oz, because both men have so much in common.  Trump, like Oz, was a longtime fixture of television (on The Apprentice) who tried to use his celebrity & wealth to win public office despite having never held it before.  Both men had specious connections to the places they wished to represent, Oz running for office in Pennsylvania despite having lived for years in New Jersey, Trump having lived in a posh New York City high-raise for decades, suddenly finding himself campaigning in the Deep South, and hoping for the votes of a white working-class group of voters of whom he knew nothing.  But while Trump was successful, Oz has struggled.  Polls show Fetterman not only leading, but starting to run away with the election.  While Oz can rebound (it's certain the race will close at some point), Fetterman is doing something Hillary Clinton never could-he's vilified Oz enough to make him toxic to swing voters, potentially getting himself a victory in November in the process.  The big question here is...why?

There are easy answers here, of course.  Clinton repeatedly experienced sexism, and it's a decent question to ask whether or not, say, Joe Biden in 2016 would've won an election against Donald Trump if he would've been able to hit him without risking being "shrill" to swing male voters (he did, after, all, beat him in 2020).  But I think the difference is slightly more complicated.

Donald Trump represented something really ugly to a lot of Americans.  But to his base he represented something they could aspire toward.  Beneath the racism & bigotry was a man whose celebrity was a complete heterosexual male fantasy.  He was married to three conventionally attractive women, and made his fame off of owning luxury apartments, casinos, & beauty pageants.  He was a gauche, ridiculous man who made fun of everyone, but he still had billions of dollars and gave us an insight into a level of wealth that most Americans only aspire toward when they are clutching a lottery ticket.  Trump's core was always going to appeal to blue-collar workers whose economic station has declined in the past decade; never mind that a large part of why it declined was that Republicans had hurt labor unions & the small farmer.  Trump, particularly in 2016 when he ran very much as a populist, was someone whose celebrity was aspirational to a large group of American men.

Dr. Mehmet Oz (R-PA)

That's not true for Mehmet Oz.  For starters, while Trump's fame was based on men knowing his name, Oz's fame was associated with a typically feminine entertainment venue: daytime television.  He made money not through casinos or beauty queens, but through helping middle-aged women lose weight.  If sexism factored into the race with Trump, here one could argue it's hurting Oz.  Oz is not running as a celebrity like Trump or one of the many pro athletes that have sought public office, but instead his brand is associated with something American men, particularly Baby Boomers, don't want to associate with.  Add in that Oz's opponent, John Fetterman, cuts a stereotypically masculine demeanor (tall, former college football player), and you've got a situation where subtle overtures regarding masculinity might gain votes.

In a weird coincidence, while no race completely emulates Fetterman's, it's worth noting that there are at least two other contests that Democrats might sneak a peak at his playbook.  In Ohio, JD Vance, whose fame is largely from writing a book that was turned into a movie starring Glenn Close & Amy Adams, has struggled to gain in traction against Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan.  Like Oz, Vance's association with the state he's running in is tenuous at best.  Though he grew up in Ohio, he only moved back there as an adult in 2016, with the express interest of running for public office.  Like Oz, his fame derives from writing a book you trudged through in a book club (more shades of Oprah!), and his opponent is a former college football player who is a longtime local fixture in politics with a history of attracting blue collar voters.  Ohio is to the right of Pennsylvania, but the similarities are considerable.

The same is true for Arizona, where it appears increasingly probable that Blake Masters will be the Republican nominee.  Like Vance, Masters is an Ivy League-educated Millennial who worked with Peter Thiel and whose chief claim to fame is writing a book.  He has been associated with some unusual beliefs like Oz & Vance (while Oz supports antivaxxers and Vance has claimed women in abusive relationships shouldn't get divorced, Masters has indulged in antisemitic conspiracy theories & has approvingly quoted Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering).  He's also unable to score a consistent lead against an opponent who, while he didn't play college football, is a decorated Gulf War veteran who made his public profile as an astronaut.

Oz, Vance, & Masters are running in races that have a lot of complicated factors, and all of them could still win.  But that they aren't running away with this, and have not gained the connection to their voters that Donald Trump did is telling, and it would be foolish to ignore that the way that Trump became famous in trying to appeal to a hyper-masculine fantasy of billions of dollars and marrying a beauty queen is very different than one where your fame was made from daytime television and book clubs...particularly against Democratic opponents whose personal biographies include college athletics, military service, & blue-collar backgrounds.  If Democrats win in 2022, it may well be a reverse of 2016-this time, campaigning on masculinity worked for them.