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Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic Senate candidate, will hold his first public rally next week since suffering a near-fatal stroke four days before the May 17 primary, his campaign announced Friday.
The rally is planned for Erie, Pennsylvania, one of the state’s swing counties, on August 12. Fetterman has only recently resumed attending fundraising events and has made a few brief public appearances — but nothing on the scale of what’s planned next week.
“Before the 2020 election, I said if I could know one single fact about the results, I could tell you who was going to win Pennsylvania. Whoever wins Erie County will win Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said in a statement announcing the rally. “Erie County is the most important county in Pennsylvania. I’ve visited Erie dozens and dozens of times in the past and it’s an honor and a pride to be back campaigning here.”
Donald Trump won Erie County in 2016, and Joe Biden captured it in 2020.
Fetterman faces celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in the November election. Oz has remained active on the campaign trail since winning the Republican primary, although he has faced criticism for traveling to Ireland and Palm Beach, Florida.
Despite his absence from the campaign trail, a recent poll showed Fetterman has the edge. Fetterman had an 11-point lead over Oz, 47 percent to 36 percent, in a Fox News poll released July 28. Three percent supported independent candidate Everett Stern, and 13 percent supported someone else or were undecided.
In an interview late last month with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — his first media interview since the stroke — Fetterman said he feels ready to get back on the trail.
“I might miss a word now and then in a conversation, or I might blurt out two words. Even then, I think it’s rare,” Fetterman said. “So I feel like we’re ready to make a run and that’s the only problem I have. This is the absolute truth, 100 percent.
Fetterman’s campaign office announced on May 15, two days before the primary, that he had suffered a stroke “caused by a clot from my heart being in A-fib rhythm for too long.” Doctors worked to “quickly and completely remove the clot, reverse the stroke, they also got my heart under control,” Fetterman said in a statement released by his campaign. Doctors inserted a pacemaker with a defibrillator.
He told the Post-Gazette that he has “no physical limitations,” walks four to five miles every day in 90-degree heat, understands words correctly and hasn’t lost any of his memory. He said he works with a speech therapist and sometimes struggles with hearing.
The race to fill the seat held by retiring Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R), is considered one of the most competitive in the country and will help determine control of the Senate majority.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s campaign arm, taunted Fetterman with a countdown to his days away from prosecution and an image of him saying, “Have you seen this guy?”
He sent out another release hours before Fetterman’s campaign announcement, saying, “Another Friday without Fetterman.”
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