Democrat John Fetterman has won the race to be Pennsylvania’s next U.S. Senator after a closely watched election with national implications, NBC News projected early Wednesday morning.
Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, defeated Mehmet Oz, a heart surgeon and longtime television personality. At times early in the cycle, it seemed Fetterman would run away with the election after handily defeating his primary opponents, but Oz tightened the race, attacking Fetterman as soft on crime and relentlessly questioning whether his Democratic counterpart was fit to serve after he suffered a stroke in May.
Nonetheless, Fetterman was ultimately able to win a campaign in which he portrayed himself as a champion of the working class and his opponent as an out-of-touch, multimillionaire carpetbagger. Fetterman also hammered Oz for having the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who won Pennsylvania in 2016 but lost the state to President Joe Biden in 2020.
Election Results 2022
Source: Associated Press. (Note: This data may be slightly different than results from NBC News' Decision Desk used elsewhere on this site)
Amy O'Kruk/NBC
“I’m proud of what we ran on: protecting a woman’s right to choose, raising our minimum wage, fighting (for) the union way of life, health care as a fundamental human right – it saved my life and it should all be there if you ever should need it – standing up to corporate greed, making things more here in America and right here in Pennsylvania, and standing up for our democracy," Fetterman said shortly after 1 a.m. in front of a crowd of supporters.
Oz conceded to Fetterman later in the morning, according to both campaigns. Fetterman spokesperson Joe Calvello tweeted that Dr. Oz called the new U.S. Senator-elect at 9:30 a.m. In an emailed concession statement, Oz congratulated his opponent and called on people to "put down their partisan swords" and come together to "get the job done."
"I hope we begin the healing process as a nation soon," Oz said.
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In his victory speech, Fetterman referenced the stroke he suffered in May. The life-threatening medical emergency became a focal point of the Oz campaign. “I had a stroke. He’s never let me forget that,” Fetterman said during the candidates’ only debate last month.
But despite some difficulty speaking at times, health experts have said Fetterman is recovering remarkably well, and noted the difference between stroke survivors’ difficulty communicating and their cognitive capabilities.
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Fetterman garnered a national profile in 2020 with regular cable TV appearances in which he excoriated legislators, including Republicans from his state, and others who questioned the legitimacy of the presidential election, which former President Trump falsely claimed was rigged against him.
While he more recently reversed his opposition to natural gas drilling, Fetterman ran as an unabashed liberal on a number of issues, and is a proponent of legalizing marijuana, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expanding protections for the LGBTQ community and ending man-made climate change.
His race against Oz, however, was defined largely on the issue of abortion after the conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed the right to the procedure at the federal level.
Fetterman called reproductive rights “non-negotiable” and vowed to support eliminating the filibuster to codify abortion into federal law. Oz, meanwhile, said he supports abortion in the case of rape or incest or if the pregnancy risks the health of the mother. However, in August, a recording emerged of him calling abortion “murder” at any stage of a pregnancy, and in last month’s debate against Fetterman, the Republican was widely ridiculed for saying that the fate of abortion to be left up to “women, doctors, local political leaders.”
Fetterman also heavily painted his opponent as an ultrawealthy carpetbagger from New Jersey who would say or do anything to get elected.
Fetterman will succeed GOP Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring at the end of the term. His victory is pivotal for Democrats, allowing them to flip a Republican-held seat as they potentially cling to their razor-thin Senate majority through an unfavorable political cycle.
