Center stage in Pennsylvania

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Face off in Pennsylvania.

Candidates for U.S. Senate Dr. Mehmet Oz and John Fetterman debated each other last week in Harrisburg.

They’re both vying to take the seat of retiring Senator Pat Toomey. He’s a Republican. Democrats are trying to flip the seat from the GOP and fill it with Fetterman.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Joining us now is Carolina Lumetta, one of WORLD’s Washington correspondents. Carolina, welcome.

CAROLINA LUMETTA, REPORTER: Hi, Mary, good to be back.

REICHARD: You went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to watch the debate between U.S. Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and John Fetterman. Set the stage for us, if you will. How important is this race?

LUMETTA: Well, Pennsylvania really is considered a bellwether state and a microcosm of what is going on in the rest of the country. So on the ground level, this is a purple region. Voter affiliation is nearly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. At the legislative level, the Commonwealth is pretty familiar with gridlock. Democratic Governor Tom Wolf is frequently at loggerheads with the state legislature which is Republican-led, so not a whole lot of bills get passed in a regular session. At the national level. Both parties are scrambling to claim a majority this cycle not just in Pennsylvania, but also in the US Senate. So it is a pretty important race this year.

REICHARD: Many layers to think about. So tell us how the debate went.

LUMETTA: So, this was unique in that most of the focus on the debate was more on the style rather than the content. John Fetterman is the Democratic candidate. He's a former mayor, also the current lieutenant governor. He runs on a pretty liberal platform, which includes advocating for abortion with no restrictions. He said he would codify Roe v. Wade, legalize marijuana and lighten prison sentencing. But the big story here is his personal health. He suffered a stroke just days before the May primary and actually, Mary, he was in surgery getting a pacemaker put in while voters were at the polls. In the months since, he's taken a lighter campaign trail schedule, he's been going through physical therapy, and said that he still suffers from some auditory processing issues. During the debate, he had closed captioning to make sure that he understood the questions, but even then, he still had some trouble verbalizing his answers. Sometimes he mixed up words, mushed some together, or just left a few out. He said he expects to be fully recovered by the time he takes office. But that is something voters will have to take on faith.

REICHARD: His health is a legitimate issue as far as being able to do the job?

LUMETTA: It is. But the other interesting thing is that people are hesitant to talk about this. Oz has released a lot of ads and criticized Fetterman for not releasing his medical records saying that he is unfit to be a US senator. Supporters and Democrats say that even criticizing his health is discriminatory. And this is actually something I experienced, too. Outside of the debate venue, I talked with a democratic volunteer. His name is Bernard and I asked him and some other supporters if they had any concerns about their candidate's recovery. And they said even asking the question was discriminatory.

REICHARD: So let’s talk about his opponent. How did Doctor Oz do?

LUMETTA: Compared to Fetterman, he was pretty eloquent. It's really clear that he is comfortable at a podium in front of a microphone, and he did keep on message. He did reroute almost every question to try to brand Fetterman not just as a Democrat, but a radical one. And this is interesting because he has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Even so, he is actively working to avoid an impression of being a MAGA Republican. He has said that he is pro-life but would allow some abortion exceptions such as in the case of rape, incest, or life of the mother. He wouldn't answer whether he would support another presidential run from Trump in 2024, just whoever the Republican Party chooses.

REICHARD: We’ve been mentioning Fetterman’s health challenges. But I want to ask in addition to that, what other challenges each candidate has to overcome in order to win?

LUMETTA: Right, so, Oz has to find a way to move past a persona of being kind of a snake oil TV salesman, which is word for word what was painted on some signs that Fetterman supporters waved outside the debate venue. He dodged a question during the debate over whether he profited from advertising of untested or possibly unsafe medical treatments during his television series. And additionally, many Pennsylvanians see him as an outsider. He only moved to the state from New Jersey in the past two years.

For Fetterman. He needs to be more specific on what his policies would be since he couldn't verbalize them well at the debate and with verbalizing them to this cause some concern for other analysts. There was a Republican analyst I interviewed. His name is Mark Weaver, and he has been a debate coach for decades. He told me that there were concerning gaps and mistakes that Fetterman made, and he said, “This would make him the least effective person in what some people have called the world's greatest debating society, the U.S. Senate.”

REICHARD: What has been the fallout politically since the debate happened?

LUMETTA: It's still soon to say since it's only been a week, but polling is starting to trend more in Oz's direction. Some aggregate polls find Fetterman up by just 1.5 points. So it is still a statistical tie at this point. The caveat here is that polling is notoriously unreliable this year with fringe voters on the right and left just simply not picking up the phone. Since the debate, high profile Democrats have been mobilizing to show that they do still support Fetterman they have full confidence in him. This includes Senator Bob Casey Jr. and even President Biden himself. On the Republican side, they have been moving a lot of money—millions of dollars—from other campaigns to support the rest of Oz's. And we are exactly one week from election day so every dollar counts.

REICHARD: It sure does. Well, to keep up with all WORLD’s election coverage, head to wng.org and sign up for Carolina’s weekly newsletter called The Stew. Carolina, thanks so much.

LUMETTA: Thanks for having me.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.