A new AARP poll in Pennsylvania finds John Fetterman (D) leading Mehmet Oz (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 50% to 44%.
Key takeaway: Oz’s favorability rating is an incredibly dismal 30% to 63%.
In the race for governor, Josh Shapiro (D) leads Doug Mastriano (R), 49% to 46%.
“Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, is quietly shifting his campaign messaging away from former President Trump as he transitions into what’s likely to be one of the most hotly contested Senate elections of the midterms,” Axios reports.
“One candidate is unabashedly blunt, willing to embrace progressive positions, doing little to build rapport with party leaders and dominating rooms with a 6-foot-8-inch frame. The other crafts a more moderate image, a deliberate public speaker who became a congressional aide out of college and has carefully cultivated relationships within the party ever since,” the AP reports.
“In both style and substance, John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro strike dramatically different profiles.”
“Yet their fate — and that of the Democratic Party — is intertwined in a pair of Pennsylvania elections that will be among the most closely watched in the U.S.”
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A new USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll in Pennsylvania finds John Fetterman (D) leading Mehmet Oz (R) by nine points in the U.S. Senate race, 46% to 37%.
In the race for governor, Josh Shapiro (D) has a 4-point advantage over Doug Mastriano (R), 44% to 40%.
“Pennsylvania’s Senate GOP primary just ended. But Republicans here are already plotting out the Senate race in 2024,” Politico reports.
“GOP leaders, donors and strategists are urging David McCormick, the former hedge fund CEO who lost by fewer than 1,000 votes to Mehmet Oz in this year’s Republican Senate contest, to run again in two years against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.”
Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman (D) may be away from the campaign trail until July, his wife told CNN.
“I almost died.”
— Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman (D), quoted by the Associated Press, on the stroke that took him off the campaign trail.
“A cardiologist who examined Lt. Gov. John Fetterman following his stroke said the Democratic Senate nominee has a type of cardiomyopathy, a heart disease that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. He said the pacemaker-defibrillator Fetterman received, along with diet, medication and exercise should allow him to go on with his campaign,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“The Allegheny County cardiologist also said Fetterman ignored his advice back in 2017, when Fetterman was experiencing swollen feet and went to see him.”
“A Pennsylvania court ordered election officials to count undated mail-in ballots for now in a nationally watched Republican Senate primary, granting a temporary injunction to David McCormick as he trailed Dr. Mehmet Oz amid a statewide recount,” the New York Times reports.
“Senate Republicans’ campaign arm is launching its first televised attack ad Friday against John Fetterman, labeling him a far-left ally of Bernie Sanders,” Politico reports.
The spot said the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee “sided with socialists, backed a government takeover of health care” and “embraced parts of the Green New Deal that’d cost you 50,000 bucks a year.”
NBC News: “Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman does not have a timetable for returning to the campaign trail, sparking some worries in the party nearly three weeks after he suffered a stroke and surgeons implanted a pacemaker with a defibrillator to regulate his heartbeat.”
“Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, has appeared publicly only in recorded video since the stroke. His wife is speaking to the media on his behalf. And the situation has prompted Democrats to refresh their knowledge of state ballot-replacement law — the deadline is in August.”
“It’s been more than a week since Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) celebrated his win in Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary from a Lancaster hospital, where he was recovering from a stroke and the implantation of a combination defibrillator-pacemaker,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“But the campaign’s explanation of his medical treatment doesn’t entirely make sense, according to cardiologists.”
The close Pennsylvania Republican Senate race between Mehmet Oz (R) and David McCormick (R) will head to a recount, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Oz’s lead over McCormick is down to about 900 votes.
Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick (R) filed suit to try to force the state to count undated absentee and mail-in ballots in the very tight primary between him and Mehmet Oz (R), the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Politico: “Pennsylvania Republicans are predicting trench warfare that could drag out for weeks — and be fought in the media, as well as potentially in the courts.”
Donald Trump on Truth Social: “Dr. Oz should declare victory. It makes it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they ‘just happened to find.’”
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “The race for the Pennsylvania Republican Senate nomination remains uncalled, and it will remain a Toss-up in our ratings regardless of whether businessman David McCormick or television doctor Mehmet Oz eventually wins the right to face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) in an open-seat race.”
“Republicans are concerned about their chances in the open Pennsylvania gubernatorial race after far-right state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) won the party’s nomination. We’re moving that race from Toss-up to Leans Democratic.”
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), who has been in the hospital recovering from a stroke since Friday, will get a pacemaker, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Fetterman’s U.S. Senate campaign “said doctors reversed Fetterman’s stroke in time to prevent any cognitive damage and that he is expected to make a full recovery.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.