The Pennsylvania Working Families Party rolled out an online "hub" on Friday to support a primary challenger to the state's US senator, John Fetterman.The WFP, an independent party that often supports Democrats with a populist economic agenda, backed Fetterman's 2022 Senate bid when he ran in the general election as a champion of many progressive causes. But the group now says he "sold out working Pennsylvanians" after pivoting hard to the right on key issues.It launched the campaign to oust him in November after he voted with Republicans to reopen the government without an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which is expected to spike health insurance premiums for over 22 million Americans this year.“While Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is supporting Trump’s use of American tax dollars to ‘run’ Venezuela or buy Greenland, 500,000 Pennsylvanians are about to see their healthcare premiums rise because of the Republican budget bill he supported,” said Nick Gavio, mid-Atlantic communications director for the Working Families Party and a former Fetterman staffer. “People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money, and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again. We need new leadership.”
The website provides past Fetterman donors who feel betrayed by the senator with a form letter to "request a refund" of past contributions from the campaign. It also contains a "Sell-out Tracker," which seeks to "track every bad position" he has taken.In addition to his vote to reopen the government, the group notes that Fetterman has voted to confirm 50% of Trump's Cabinet picks. He was the only Democrat who voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and one of the very few to vote in favor of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.It also accuses him of "betraying vulnerable people" by supporting Republican legislation that eliminates due process for undocumented immigrants, cheering US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid its mass deportation crusade, and giving full-throated support to Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and Trump's strikes on Iran.The site also highlights Fetterman's tendency to neglect the basic duties of his job as a senator, which he has admitted he skips to spend more time with his family and because he finds them “overwhelmingly procedural.” Fetterman has one of the worst attendance records in the Senate, having missed over 100 votes since April 2024 and skipped 44 out of 45 meetings for committees he was assigned to between January and May 2025. He has also said he hosts very few town halls in order to avoid protesters, who have shown up to voice their discontent with his support for Israel, among other controversial positions.As the site points out, while some other Democrats fought tooth and nail in a losing effort to stop Republicans from passing massive safety-net cuts in this summer's budget reconciliation package, Fetterman told Politico, "I just want to go home" and complained that he'd missed his family's trip to the beach.
So far, no prominent Pennsylvania Democrats have offered themselves up as potential primary challengers for Fetterman, who comes up for reelection in 2028.Top names, including former Rep. Conor Lamb, who ran against Fetterman in the 2022 Democratic primary, and Philadelphia area Rep. Madeleine Dean have said they would not challenge Fetterman if he ran for another term. Meanwhile, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who called Fetterman "Trump's favorite Democrat" last year, told NOTUS he'd be open to running against him.The Pennsylvania Working Families Party said it is collecting donations that it will use to help "identify, recruit, and elect a real working class champion to replace Fetterman in the US Senate."The group told NBC News that it has already amassed more than 425 people interested in either running against Fetterman themselves or volunteering their time or donating to help the effort to unseat him.