John Fetterman will win the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary, CNN projects, capping a bizarre final few days of the campaign after the lieutenant governor suffered a stroke last week.
Fetterman checked into a hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Friday as he was on his way to a campaign event. He was found to have had a stroke. Fetterman has been in the hospital ever since, and he underwent a nearly three-hour surgery on Tuesday to implant a pacemaker that includes a defibrillator.
John Fetterman will win Democratic Senate primary, CNN projects.
Fetterman surrounde by his dad, brother and his campaign manager. Watche the results come in from his hospital, while his supporters gathere. Pittsburgh to cheer the win, look toward the general election and listen to a speech from Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the candidate’s wife.
Gisele Barreto Fetterman told CNN that President Joe Biden phoned her husband to congratulate. After his win, but the candidate was asleep after his surgery hours earlier. She took the call instead and said Biden offered congratulations, wished her husband a speedy recovery and said he couldn’t wait to support him in the closely watched race in November.
While the hospital stay injected a level of uncertainty into the race, Fetterman had long been the front-runner, holding a steady polling lead over US Rep. Conor Lamb and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.
And nearly all Pennsylvania Democratic voters who CNN. The final days of the campaign including when Fetterman was. The hospital said the stroke would not change their vote.
For the lieutenant governor, who lost in the primary when he ran for US Senate in 2016, the win is the cap on a high-profile rise from small-town mayor to statewide elected official. Fetterman serve as mayor of Braddock, a small town near Pittsburgh, from 2006 to 2019, when he became lieutenant governor.
Fetterman is difficult to pin down politically and looks nothing. A traditional politician, something that set him apart from his primary opponents.
The candidate is often describe as a progressive populist. Holds positions that span the spectrum of the Democratic Party. He opposed the defund the police effort, made legalizing marijuana central. His time as lieutenant governor and backed universal health care plans.