HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) opened his debate versus Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) with a “goodnight, everybody,” delivering a heart-wrenching and, at times, hard-to-watch performance that raised more doubts about his fitness for the Senate than it satisfied amid his ongoing recovery from a stroke.
Fetterman, 53, tried to tackle the “elephant in the room,” his words, head-on early in his only televised showdown with Oz in a close contest for a crucial open Senate seat that could decide the balance of power on Capitol Hill. “I had a stroke. He’s never let me forget that,” the lieutenant governor said. “I might miss some words during this debate, mush two words together. But it knocked me down, but I’m going to keep coming back up.”
And Fetterman did keep coming back. The lieutenant governor paired his halting and often verbally jumbled answers with sharp attacks on Oz, a renowned heart surgeon and veteran television host whose polish likely would have outshined him even if he was not impaired by the effects of a stroke suffered just before winning the May 17 Democratic primary. “It’s the Oz rule; he’s on TV, and he’s lying,” Fetterman said several times throughout the showdown, broadcast from Pennsylvania’s state capital.
“This was a great debate for John,” Fetterman campaign spokesman Joe Calvello insisted to reporters afterward. “He won countless exchanges, counterpunched — he withstood Oz’s cruel and frankly sleazy attacks.”
Calvello’s acknowledged spin is going to be a hard sell to anyone who watched.
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For most of the hour, televised live nationally by the upstart cable news network NewsNation, Fetterman periodically appeared noticeably cognitively impaired, although not lost. At times, he took long pauses to read from closed captioning set up in the local ABC News affiliate’s studio so that he could read the words spoken by both the moderator and Oz. And often, the lieutenant governor seemed unable to form coherent or fluid sentences in response to questions or parry attacks from Oz.
“I’m the only person on this stage right now that’s right now that has — that can, successful about pushing back against gun violence and being a community more safe,” Fetterman said, responding to a moderator’s question about his record on public safety, adding, about Oz: “He has never made any attempt to address crime during his entire career except showing up for photo ops here in Philadelphia.”
It was just the sort of showing, one that magnified questions about Fetterman’s health, that supporter John Abbott was worried about. Abbott stopped by the debate with a homemade sign that read “Big John has my vote” to offer his encouragement.
“Camera angles, media, rapid-fire questions could be cruel to somebody,” said Abbott, 62, who lives in Harrisburg and works in sales. “Media, television’s very important still, so yeah, I am worried about that.”
Fetterman entered the debate with a narrow lead over Oz, having edged the Republican in 21 of the last 22 public opinion polls since June (the other survey was a tie). But Republican insiders who watched predicted Oz would overtake the lieutenant governor and keep this Senate seat in GOP hands, likely foreclosing Democratic hopes of hanging on to a 50-seat Senate majority that exists courtesy of Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote. “Game, set, match,” veteran Pennsylvania GOP operative Charlie Gerow said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gerow added. “It was truly painful to watch.” Gerow’s assessment that Fetterman stumbled badly but that it was particularly uncomfortable and unfortunate to watch was shared by several Republican strategists interviewed by the Washington Examiner after the debate concluded.
Oz did not let Fetterman’s struggles stop him from going on the attack, hitting the Democrat early and often for his record as the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and lieutenant governor, on issues ranging from crime to energy to inflation. And he was effective in keeping the focus on the issues voters care about most — the economy, crime, and border security — and his commitment to addressing them as a senator. But Oz also was quite fortunate.
Fetterman’s unique challenges getting through the debate overshadowed what might have been glaring deficiencies by Oz, who did not let the lieutenant governor’s mental handicap stop him from leveling incisive attacks just as he might on any other opponent.
The Republican seemed to equivocate on abortion rights and dodged a question on bipartisan legislation to overhaul federal gun laws championed by retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). This was despite vowing over and over again throughout the hour that his goal was to return civility to Capitol Hill and to work with Democrats to reach consensus solutions to polarizing problems. “I want to bring balance to Washington,” he said more than once.
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Pressed repeatedly by the moderators to explain his position on the Toomey-supported firearms law, Oz would not answer. “I have been supported by Pat Toomey. I’ve enjoyed working with him. I think he’s done a wonderful job. There are parts of that bill that I like a lot,” he said. But would he have voted for it? “I would have tried to improve that bill. I wasn’t there at the time, so I can’t speak to what was possible.”
Later, in the media “spin room,” the Oz campaign declared the debate a “complete disaster” for Fetterman. But Oz spokesman Barney Keller made no mention of what the lieutenant governor deemed “the elephant in the room.”
“He wasn’t able to defend any of his radical positions tonight, and it really showed,” Keller said.
