Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., misspoke on stage at the Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday, telling the crowd “Because I’m a lifelong Republican” before catching himself and correcting course.
The line came in response to an attendee’s question asking why he doesn’t just run as an independent. Fetterman immediately recognized the slip. “I guarantee you that will break through. That will get clipped,” he said, drawing laughs from the audience.
He then made clear he has no plan to leave the Democratic Party. “I don’t have a reason to,” he said of switching to the GOP. “But for a big-tent situation, it’s easier to be included in that big tent to say America deserved 9/11 or America is worse than Al-Qaida than being very proud to stand on the side of Israel.”
Fetterman said he believes he has “no path as a Republican,” even as he acknowledged the frustration his own party feels toward him over his willingness to work across the aisle. “If the Democratic Party votes me out or expels me, they’re always entitled to do that,” he said.
The moment fed an ongoing storyline around Fetterman’s standing with Democrats. Republicans have openly courted him, and speculation about a party switch intensified after he appeared in a video introducing Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., at the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention earlier this month. Fetterman has repeatedly batted down the switch talk and reaffirmed his Democratic ties despite mounting pressure from within his own caucus.
Fetterman won his Senate seat in 2022 by defeating Dr. Mehmet Oz, running on a progressive platform that helped Democrats secure a historically narrow majority. Since then he has increasingly clashed with his party’s direction, warning earlier this year that he would leave if Democrats entrenched further into anti-Israel positions, and criticizing the rise of further-left figures such as Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed during this midterm cycle.
