It was bound to happen. The voters in Pennsylvania are seeing Senator John Fetterman in action and they aren’t happy. What took so long?
Fetterman’s approval rating is the same as Joe Biden’s in Pennsylvania. Wowser. That’s saying something and it’s not good. A new poll by Quinnipiac shows that both Fetterman and Biden have an approval rating of 39%. Biden, however, has a higher disapproval rating than Fetterman. 57% of Pennsylvanians disapprove of Biden’s job performance and 50% disapprove of Fetterman’s job performance.
It’s amazing that there are 50% that are ok with Fetterman’s job performance. Political divides run deep, though, and there is little doubt that Democrats will support him to retain the status quo in the Senate.
Compare the numbers for Fetterman and Biden with those of Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro. His numbers are pretty good, all things considered. His approval is at 57% and disapproval is at 23%. 20% of respondents didn’t offer an opinion. He is likely benefitting from his handling of the I-95 bridge collapse. As usually happens, more Democrats were polled than Republicans.
“Those across-the-board honeymoon approval numbers for first termer Gov. Shapiro are no doubt buoyed by voters’ perceptions that he stepped up and took charge when the bridge came down on I-95,” polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.
The poll was conducted from June 22 to June 26 and surveyed 1,584 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. Of the registered voters, 614 identified as Republicans, and 664 were Democrats, according to the poll’s press release.
Fetterman was elected after suffering a near-fatal stroke as he campaigned for the U.S. Senate. At the time, he was the lt. governor of his state. It was painfully clear that he was not well enough to do the job, yet Democrats elected him. His wife insisted Fetterman was fine and able to do the job. What she didn’t say was that he is unable to communicate in the same way most other people communicate. He uses electronic assistance and the Senate has accommodated his needs. No one can help him speak, though, and when he does a news conference or chairs a sub-committee, his speech is garbled and he has great difficulty stringing together sentences that make sense.
The senator admits he is hard to understand. He knows. And, yet, he continues to be enabled by his wife and Democrats in the Senate. He is allowed to dress as a college frat boy in hoodies and baggy shorts and showed up dressed like that recently when he was a part of the welcoming delegation in Pennsylvania for President Biden’s visit. He stuck out like a sore thumb.
Where is his wife? His staff? Isn’t there someone around him who can help him dress as he should? He is a fifty-something-year-old man, for heaven’s sake. He should show some respect for his office.
Pennsylvania’s senior senator, Democrat Bob Casey, has better numbers. Kinda. He has an approval rate of 44%, 32% disapproval, and 24% have no opinion. At least his approval rate is positive.
Also noted in the poll, Trump narrowly leads Biden, 47% to 46%, in a rematch of the 2020 election.
It is hard not to think that if Republicans ran a better candidate for the Senate against Fetterman, the seat would have remained with Republicans. Instead, Trump endorsed Dr. Oz and Republican primary voters went along with that. It was a hard lesson to learn. Celebrities don’t necessarily translate into serious politicians. Republican primary voters have to make a real effort to be serious and nominate candidates who will win with independents as well as Republican voters. Otherwise, even stroke-addled Democrats will win.
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