Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American, said he would run in a primary to be the Democratic nominee in 2028
John Fetterman, the maverick Democratic senator who has provoked widespread anger by increasingly siding with Republicans, is to be challenged for his Pennsylvania seat by a democratic socialist candidate who is originally from Gaza.
Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American, said he would run in a primary to be the Democratic nominee in 2028, when Fetterman’s seat is up for re-election.
The move is the first sign of Fetterman’s weakened position in the party since the Democrats won back control of the Senate in last week’s US midterm elections, when the party won at least 54 of the upper chamber’s 100 seats.
Worst part about Fetterman is that it’s not entirely clear if his stroke made him Republican or just broke his brain enough to make him go mask off and more extreme with his “not Republican” actual beliefs.
For about 1.5 years after the stroke, Fetterman’s voting record was one of the bluest in the senate. If anything, it was kind of weird how a guy who campaigned on being different from the usual corporate democrats toed the party line so well.
The narrative that his stroke turned hin conservative is fun, but does not hold up under scrutiny. I think AIPAC just got to him.
LobbyingBribe money does funny things to people.Nah, he was always like that. Some More News on the “switch” (being compared to Dr Oz let him ride a progressive wave without having done anything to earn it)
I replied to someone else with details:
https://lemmy.world/post/54222580/26809159
I do tend to agree that he was more left before the stroke, or at least more covert, though bluest in the Senate during a period of no substantive control really doesn’t mean much. I’m the best runner when nobody else shows up to the race because there’s no reward, too.
This is the talking-point we always heard with Kamala Harris and how she was “More progressive than Bernie Sanders” lol. Or how Sinema was progressive… Until she was actually the deciding vote on something as pivotal as gutting the filibuster.
Genuinely curious, why?
Fetterman had his stroke in 2022. He took his Senate office in 2023.
https://fettermanvoting.com/voting-record/
In 2023, he broke from the DNC on 5 votes. In 2024, he broke from the DNC on just 2 votes. In January of 2025 alone, he broke from the DNC 12 times. In just 7 days from 1/20/25-1/27/25 he doubled the number of party break votes. He has 167 party break votes total, with 7 being in 2023-2024 and 160 being in 2025-2026.
That still leaves the possibility: was the DNC perhaps more conservative in 2023-2024 than it was in 2025-2026?
This site tracks “progressive” votes. . According to this, he had:
Despite what his confused claims about whether he ever ran as a Progressive or not, he was effectively one of the most progressive members of the senate for his first 2 years in office, which were after the stroke. You can see he took an extended absence in July 2024 which is mostly white (neutral) evaluation. Then he took another leave of absence in November 2024 which has a mixture of white and red, meaning that he missed several close votes where he failed to help a progressive cause. Once he comes back, we see a lot more red in November-December 2024. If I was conspiratorially inclined, I would be interested in where he went, who he talked to, and what money went where during those two absences.
That’s what I mean when I say that the narrative about the stroke does not hold up to scrutiny. He was one of the most progressive senators in the building for 2 years after his stroke.