Pennsylvania Democrats are laying the groundwork to oust Sen. John Fetterman after a damaging report based on leaked staff texts, and the senator's most vocal defender so far is the Republican who sits across the aisle.
A Wall Street Journal report published in late August painted Fetterman as a senator who brushed off meetings with a children's hospital and paralyzed veterans from his own state, and who skipped a funeral for slain police officers because it would have taken too long. The report, built on leaked text messages between Fetterman and his staff, set off a firestorm inside the Pennsylvania Democratic delegation and drew a public rebuke from the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Fetterman dismissed the allegations in a statement to CNN, calling them "lies, half-truths, innuendos, smears and anonymous." He blamed "disgruntled" former staffers for the leaks. But the damage inside his own party was already moving beyond words.
Rep. Chris Deluzio, a progressive Democrat representing southwest Pennsylvania, posted on X that Fetterman "has no sense of duty" and called his behavior "pathetic." Deluzio did not stop at criticism. He put a date on it:
"He is not up for the high office he was elected to, and we in Pennsylvania will do something about it in 2028."
That is not an idle gripe from a backbencher. It is a sitting Democratic congressman publicly announcing that his own party's senator deserves a primary challenge, or worse, two years from now. The DNC vice chair has piled on as well, though the specific actions beyond public statements remain unclear.
While Fetterman's fellow Democrats reached for the nearest microphone to distance themselves, Republican Sen. Dave McCormick did the opposite. McCormick, who represents the other half of one of only three Senate duos from a purple state, posted a full-throated defense of Fetterman on X.
McCormick wrote on X that the leaked texts story was "the latest example of outrageously disloyal staff and forces on the Left using anonymous leaks to cancel my friend John Fetterman." He added:
"They hate that he is an independent thinker who refuses to fall into line so they want to silence him."
McCormick then listed a string of bipartisan accomplishments he said the two senators had delivered together: saving jobs at US Steel, passing a housing affordability law, securing $600 million to replace the Delaware River Bridge, and delivering funding to protect Presque Isle State Park on the shore of Lake Erie.
The two senators have not limited their partnership to press releases. Federal Election Commission filings show that Fetterman and McCormick launched a joint fundraising committee called Common Ground PA in July, a donor-driven initiative that splits shared contributions between each senator's campaign and leadership committees. On Labor Day, the pair toured a Bell & Evans chicken processing facility together in Pennsylvania.
When reporters asked Fetterman whether he would oppose McCormick's expected 2030 re-election bid, the Democrat did not hedge. "Well, I would absolutely never move against my friend," he said.
The leaked-texts episode did not create the rift between Fetterman and his party. It accelerated one that has been building for months. The Wall Street Journal report noted that Fetterman appeared more interested in going on Fox News to discuss Israel than in meeting with Pennsylvania constituents, a detail that enraged progressives who helped elect him in 2022.
Fetterman has previously clashed with his own party on immigration, warning that defying the Supreme Court on immigration enforcement would invite a constitutional crisis. That kind of public break with progressive orthodoxy earned him admirers on the right and enemies on the left long before any staff texts leaked.
The Democratic Party's internal war is not confined to Pennsylvania. Moderate Democrats have launched a $15 million effort to block democratic socialists from gaining ground before 2028, and veteran strategist James Carville has publicly threatened to leave the party if its leftward drift continues. Fetterman's situation sits at the center of that larger fracture: a Democrat who won a swing state by running as a populist, then refused to stay inside the lines his party drew for him.
The specific text exchanges that fueled the Wall Street Journal report have not been published in full, and Fetterman has not addressed the individual allegations, the children's hospital, the paralyzed veterans, the police funeral, point by point. His blanket response to CNN covered all of them at once without distinguishing between what he disputes as false and what he disputes as misleading.
That leaves several questions hanging. Who leaked the texts? Fetterman says "disgruntled" staffers, but has not named them. Did the Wall Street Journal identify the staffers, or were they granted anonymity? The article does not say. And what, precisely, did Fetterman tell his staff about the veterans' meeting and the police funeral? The full text of the messages has not been made public.
Whether Fetterman mounts a re-election bid in 2028 remains an open question. Fox News Digital reported that the senator has not committed either way. If he does run, Deluzio's public promise that Pennsylvania Democrats "will do something about it" suggests a contested primary is all but guaranteed.
Cross-party alliances in Congress are not unheard of, but they rarely survive the kind of institutional pressure Fetterman now faces. Even within the Republican conference, members who broke with party leadership on key votes have drawn sharp internal backlash. Fetterman is not merely breaking with his party on a vote or two. He is fundraising with the other side, touring factories with the other side, and calling the other side's senator his friend, while his own colleagues call him unfit for office.
McCormick's defense of Fetterman is not charity. A Republican senator in a purple state benefits from a visible, bipartisan partnership that produces deliverables, bridge funding, steel jobs, state park money, he can run on in 2030. If Fetterman survives and stays in the Senate, McCormick has a working ally. If Democrats primary Fetterman and replace him with a progressive, McCormick still gets credit for the partnership and faces a less battle-tested opponent.
Fetterman's CNN statement closed with a line that read less like damage control and more like a man who has already decided which fight he wants. "No matter how many smears or stories," he said, "I'm proud to continue to deliver for Pennsylvania."
When a senator's strongest defender wears the other party's jersey, the problem is not the senator. It is the party that lost him.