Onetime liberal darling-turned-populist provocateur Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has once again angered his Democratic Party with a truth bomb none of his colleagues wanted to hear. Namely, he has predicted that former President Donald Trump will win the all-important Keystone State after taking it in 2016 and losing there to Joe Biden in 2020.
Appearing on Newsmax, Fetterman said his home state voters will size up Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris and find out the choice is obvious. “I think if you match up Trump with Harris, and I think that’s what this is really about, and I do believe he’s going to win Pennsylvania. And I do believe it’s going to be close, but whether it’s Biden, whether it was Clinton, or whether it was with Vice President Harris, I think it’s going to be very close.”
WATCH:
Sen. John Fetterman gives his prediction on who he thinks will win his home state of Pennsylvania and his Democratic Party went nuts. pic.twitter.com/djc9lbUZRW
— USA Features Media (@UsaFeatures) August 9, 2024
Since selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate this week, Harris has faced criticism from some Democrats who believe she should have chosen Pennsylvania Gov. Joshua Shapiro, a popular first-term governor. Fetterman, among others, contributed to rumors that Shapiro’s ambitions could overshadow a Harris administration. Meanwhile, Republicans, including Trump’s running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have claimed that Harris avoided Shapiro due to his Jewish heritage, citing concerns from anti-Israel progressives who feared that Shapiro would have undue influence over the White House.
A senior political data analyst for NBC and MSNBC has served up some new findings that will be good news for Trump’s campaign but not so much for that of Harris. Steve Kornacki looked at the electoral history of Minnesota to see if the “rural appeal” Gov. Tim Walz has been charged with bringing to the Harris campaign really exists.
“That background – the small town background, the military background – Democrats are hoping it’s gonna help them. You’re hearing a lot about this, here as we take a look at our battleground map. They’re hoping it’s going to help them in these three very familiar battleground states we always talk about: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The reason, obviously, from the Electoral College standpoint, is why these are so important, bu the challenge for Democrats in these three states has been pretty straightforward for a long time now,” Kornacki began.
“Democrats have been cleaning up, increasingly so, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, suburbs of Pittsburgh, suburbs of Detroit, suburbs of Grand Rapids, and even suburbs of Milwaukee, which used to be hardcore Republican. Much, much less so in the Trump era. So, the Democrats have been doing really, really well in the suburbs. Where they need help in these states, and why these states have been so close, and why Trump even won all three of these states in 2016, is the sort of small-town rural core of each one of these states,” he continued.
“That’s where Trump and the Republicans have been surging since 2016. That’s where the Democrats have been losing ground. The Democrats used to do pretty well in a lot of these places. No more. So, the hope is that, for Democrats, Walz’s background, his story, will be familiar to voters in those places and will help them in those states,” he said.
Kornacki then looked at the history of Stearns County, Minn., noting: “This is similar to a lot of the terrain you see in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania… This is a stand-in for dozens of counties in Minnesota where you saw the same thing. Walz lost this by 23 points [in 2022]. How does that compare to Joe Biden in 2020? Joe Biden lost the same county by 23 points. How does that compare to Hillary Clinton in 2016? Hillary Clinton lost it by 28 points.”
Continuing, Kornacki said: “It’s the suburban areas, the metropolitan areas, that have gotten much more blue and Walz performed just like Biden did, better than Clinton did, in places like this. And then in the rest of Greater Minnesota, small-town Minnesota where the Democrats have been losing ground, Walz performed basically just like Biden did. The idea that he’s got this automatic appeal, the small-town areas in those three key battleground states. You don’t see it in what he actually did on the ballot in 2022.”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.