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.
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.
I respect you bringing substance to this discussion. Upon review I’m personally not all impressed about how Fetterman is shown to be progressive this way simply by relative comparison to the rest of the generally highly-conservative Senate. Even if these were fruitful votes (most honestly weren’t for aforementioned reasons of a divided Congress and non supermajority), I’d be the tallest person in the room with children, but that doesn’t make me tall, right? Finally, we unfortunately cannot contrast with an unanswerable counterfactual that is: Would he have been more progressive if he didn’t have the stroke? Because ultimately there are many other variables from year to year that cannot be fully adjusted for.
I thus prefer to look at Fetterman through the lens of shifted trailblazing policy stances and divisive topics pre and post-stroke:
Fetterman moved from once referring to himself as a “progressive champion” and “We have started a progressive movement here in Pennsylvania” — Again, these Pre-stroke. Only later in 2023 did he change his tune.
Since 2023, Fetterman suddenly became much more staunchly anti-immigrant and parroting of Republican Border policy talking-points. His position has heavily shifted on ICE, once being much more strongly opposed to ICE. Contrast, “law-abiding citizens seeking a better life” to Biden “Bungling” and “destroying” the border by late 2023.
Pre-stroke, Fetterman once strongly supported Single-payer Medicare For All, but now no longer does post-stroke.
It seems he has long been supportive of Israel, which in the backdrop of Charlottesville and genuine antisemitism of the right through the 2010s, combined with peak power of AIPAC and a large Jewish cohort in PA, I can somewhat understand. I can further imagine that his stroke could have reduced his ability to see nuance following O7 and still resorting to default programming of, “antisemitism bad!”
Maybe my definition of progressive or left-leaning is different, but I find it hard to call anyone a progressive whatsoever who has shifted and actively holds regressive positions on that which the broader progressive coalition fully promote.
Wasn’t there a whole mainstream media report on him having an AIPAC handler who whispered in his ears 24/7? I thought that had cleared the air about the reason for the switch in people’s minds but I guess not.
Edit: The Man Who Explains Israel to John Fetterman - How a little-known writer became one of the senator’s closest confidants.
https://archive.ph/cXJwN