PITTSBURGH — John Fetterman is the winner of the Democratic nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, NBC News projected Tuesday.
He will face the winner of a competitive Republican primary, the result of which is not yet known. The seat is being vacated by the retiring two-term GOP Sen. Pat Toomey.
Minutes after NBC News projected the contest, Fetterman, who is in the hospital recovering from a health scare in the closing days of the race, tweeted his gratitude to voters.
His campaign said Sunday he had a stroke on Friday but the treatment was successful and he expects a full recovery. On Tuesday afternoon, as voters were headed to the polls, his campaign announced that he was “about to undergo a standard procedure to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator.”
Also on Tuesday, he wrote to his email list assuring them he is “A-okay,” including a smiling photo of him in the hospital with his three young children.
The contest is arguably Democrats’ best opportunity to pick up a Republican-held seat in what’s shaping up to be a grim political landscape for the party in power in the Nov. 8 general election.
Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, jumped in the race early and established himself the front-runner, quickly raising huge sums of money and using his statewide name recognition to solidify his position. He is projected to defeat Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., and state representative Malcolm Kenyatta, according to NBC News.
For Pennsylvania Democrats, the 6-foot-8 Fetterman is unconventional in style and substance. He’s a supporter of legalizing marijuana and raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour. He recently spoke out against Philadelphia’s reimposition of a mask mandate, shortly before it ended, and broke with President Joe Biden on the Title 42 public health rule for immigration.
His wife, Gisele Fetterman, voted in their town of Braddock just outside this city, where John Fetterman formerly served as mayor. She told reporters afterward that he would be back on the campaign trail “soon” without offering an exact date.
“This is the seat that could decide very much the future of our country and where we go on issues that he’s worked so hard on for the last two decades,” Gisele Fetterman said Tuesday morning after casting her ballot. “So it’s a very important seat. It’s very serious.”
She said the contrast with Republicans is “night and day.”
“This would be the deciding factor on women’s rights, on minimum wage, on issues that would affect millions of Americans,” she said. “So the contrast couldn’t be more stark.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
