“If someone’s willing to peddle snake oil to make a buck, then he’s probably willing to sell snake oil to get elected.”
— Barack Obama, quoted by the Washington Post, on Dr. Mehmet Oz (R).
“If someone’s willing to peddle snake oil to make a buck, then he’s probably willing to sell snake oil to get elected.”
— Barack Obama, quoted by the Washington Post, on Dr. Mehmet Oz (R).
Wall Street Journal: “If Mr. Fetterman loses, Democrats will blow their best chance to pick up a GOP seat—the one held by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring.”
“If Mr. Oz loses, Republicans will have to pick up at least two other Democratic-held seats to have a shot at taking control of the Senate, which is now split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris the tiebreaking vote.”
Oz will campaign with Donald Trump today, leading Playbook to note: “Is this the event you want on the last Saturday before Election Day when you’re trying to woo suburban moderates around Philly? Front pages tomorrow will be Oz embracing Mastriano and Trump. Not exactly the Glenn Youngkin 2021 playbook.”
“The top Democratic Senate super PAC is rushing to put Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of John Fetterman on the airwaves,” Politico reports.
“It is launching a new television ad featuring the superstar’s announcement on Thursday evening that she supports Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s race for the Senate.”
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Oprah Winfrey endorsed John Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race over her friend, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Today Show reports.
Politico: “Fetterman’s orbit knew how powerful a nod from Winfrey would be, and it worked behind the scenes to court her. The Fettterman campaign made a direct appeal to her for a meeting, according to a person familiar with the outreach.”
A new Marist poll in Pennsylvania finds John Fetterman (D) leads Mehmet Oz (R), 51% to 45% among those who say they definitely plan to vote in this month’s election.
Among registered voters, Fetterman is ahead of Oz, 50% to 44%.
For comparison, the FiveThirtyEight polling average shows the race is a dead heat.
A new Fox News poll in Pennsylvania shows John Fetterman (D) holding on to a lead over Mehmet Oz (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 45% to 42%.
A new USA Today/Suffolk poll in Pennsylvania shows John Fetterman (D) just ahead of Mehmet Oz (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 45%.
Key takeaway: “The contest is up for grabs, the survey shows, with an unusually high 19% of independents undecided, even as early voting has opened.”
Also important: “Seven percent of those now supporting other Senate candidates or undecided in the race say they would have voted for Fetterman if he hadn’t had a stroke.”
Philadelphia Inquirer: What effect did the Oz-Fetterman debate have on the Senate race? Here’s what three new polls show.
A new Monmouth poll in Pennsylvania shows nearly half of the electorate will either definitely (39%) or probably (9%) vote for John Fetterman (D) for U.S. Senate, while while Mehmet Oz has 32% definitely supporting him and 12% probably supporting.
Washington Post: “Oz’s research was scheduled to lead off the scientific session of the 83rd annual American Association for Thoracic Surgery conference, where physicians in that specialty convene to discuss developments in their field. But Oz was forced to withdraw his work and was banned from presenting research to the organization for the next two years.”
“At issue were questions about the strength of the data used by Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, to reach an important medical conclusion… The penalty he experienced in 2003 was a significant one.”
Mehmet Oz (R) suggested on Fox News that Pennsylvania, where he is running for U.S. Senate, is on the Atlantic Ocean.
Said Oz: “This is important: We do not have a Republican senator north of North Carolina on the Atlantic coast until you get to Maine, if I don’t hold this seat.”
He added: “And there’s been a Republican senator in Pennsylvania most of my life. I’m going to keep one here as well.”
Associated Press: “The open Senate seat in the commonwealth has for months been the most likely pick-up opportunity for Democrats in the evenly-divided Senate, but as prospects darken for Democratic incumbents elsewhere, a win in Pennsylvania is becoming an even more urgent insurance policy for the party to cling to Senate control.”
“Biden’s latest attempt to prop up Democratic nominee John Fetterman will be at a fundraising dinner for the state Democratic Party, where he’ll speak along with Vice President Kamala Harris, top party officials and the leading candidates on the midterm ballot in this presidential battleground state.”
A new Wick Insights poll in Pennsylvania shows Mehmet Oz (R) grabbing the lead from John Fettterman (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 45%.
For comparison, the FiveThirtyEight polling average shows Fetterman ahead by 1.5 percentage points.
Philadelphia Inquirer: “As fans settle in to watch the Phillies and Astros begin their championship series Friday night, a top Democratic political group will run an ad during Game 1 highlighting Oz’s comments on abortion rights in a closely watched U.S. Senate debate Tuesday.”
“The spot is expected to cost around $100,000 for a single airing on Philly’s Fox29, a huge sum even in a race that has already cost nearly $320 million. (For comparison’s sake, a weekday ad during Fox29′s 6 o’clock news cost the same group $700).”
“If Pennsylvania’s tightening U.S. Senate race turns out to be as close as it’s current trajectory, it’s unlikely the winner will be apparent on the night of Nov. 8,” McClatchy reports.
“Election officials have begun warning the public that tabulations in many counties will proceed well into the next day and possibly beyond, due to restrictions workers face in processing mail-in ballots.”
John Hendrickson: “Tonight’s hour-long exchange was, in some ways, a Rorschach test of comfort with disability. Viewers from outside Pennsylvania tuned in to the broadcast from a local TV studio in Harrisburg to hear the candidates discuss the defining issues of this election cycle—abortion, inflation, gun laws, illegal immigration, energy—but many people queued up the livestream to gawk at one of the candidates.”
“Unfortunately, no disability accommodations—not even 70-inch television monitors for real-time captioning—can change how our society stigmatizes verbal disfluency. We are a culture of sound bites, mic drops, and clapbacks. To speak in any way that deviates from the norm is to summon ridicule and judgment. That’s already happening to Fetterman, and his campaign now faces an extraordinarily difficult situation.”
“He should not have debated. Anyone on his team who agreed to a debate should be fired, or never work again, because that debate may have tanked his campaign. This race was trending toward victory. Now, it’s anyone’s guess what happens.”
— Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis, quoted by NBC News, on John Fetterman’s debate last night in Pennsylvania.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells: “I don’t want to understate how significant a problem Fetterman’s condition was for his ability to debate effectively. The cognitive gaps were evident nearly every time he spoke, and shaped many of the exchanges. Often, Fetterman would begin an answer with a clear sentence, only to follow it with several confusing ones. At other times, he would hit upon a phrase of choice (a favorite was ‘the Oz Rule,’ the ‘rule’ being that Oz lies every time he’s on television) and continue to circle back to it, like a life raft.”
“When Fetterman’s answers triggered some basic political follow-ups from the hosts, he could not find the words to talk his way out of them, as politicians ordinarily do…”
“It seems a little strange to think about exactly how this debate will affect the rest of the race, though I’m inclined to assume that it was much worse for Fetterman than for Oz. Even so, there was a rare poignancy to Fetterman’s position last night, both in what he was so obviously struggling through and in how much pressure was on him. The Democrats are in a perilous political situation at the moment—they are almost sure to lose control of the House of Representatives, President Biden is unpopular, and the economy is teetering. What they have been depending upon this year is that a few exceptional candidates in key states (Mark Kelly, in Arizona; Raphael Warnock, in Georgia; Catherine Cortez Masto, in Nevada; and Fetterman, in Pennsylvania) will pull in enough swing voters to keep control of the Senate and keep the politics of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis at bay. So much depends upon a handful of individuals—upon their vigor on the trail, upon the precision of their arguments, upon their health. Maybe too much.”
“John Fetterman’s debate performance has intensified the focus on his recovery from a stroke, leading some supporters to worry that his current post-stroke limitations could affect his narrow lead in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race against Mehmet Oz,” CNN reports.
“If Fetterman’s showing changes the trajectory of the race, the debate could have nationwide ramifications, with Pennsylvania representing the best chance for Democrats to pick up a Senate seat in the evenly divided chamber.”
The Hill: Democrats in second-guessing mode after Fetterman-Oz Pennsylvania debate.
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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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