Pennsylvania’s Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman managed to win over voters in the commonwealth despite delivering one of the worst debate performances in US history.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. and Democratic US Senate candidate John Fetterman walks on the stage at his campaign’s watch party on Nov. 8, 2022. Fetterman prevailed in his Senate race against Dr. Oz. (Image: Getty)
Fetterman has served under Gov. Tom Wolf (D) for the past four years. The former mayor of Braddock in the Pittsburg suburbs was seen as the perennial front-runner for Pennsylvania’s vacant US Senate seat throughout much of the election against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. But after Fetterman finally agreed to debate Dr. Oz after stalling a face-to-face meeting with his opponent throughout the campaign, all bets were seemingly off.
While Fetterman’s campaign said he had little lasting complications from his May stroke, the lieutenant governor during the October debate struggled greatly to formulate his positions and rebuff Dr. Oz’s attacks with coherent sentences.
Fetterman’s poor performance led the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board into rescinding its endorsement of the lieutenant governor and backing Oz. PredictIt bettors also changed their thinking. After the debate, bettors put much stock behind Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania.
Ahead of Election Day, Dr. Oz’s shares of succeeding Pennsylvania’s Republican Sen. Pat Toomey were trading at 63 cents. Fetterman was the underdog at 40 cents.
Early Vote Went Blue
The tide was with Dr. Oz heading into yesterday’s election. But early voting and mail-in voting, which had been underway for weeks before Fetterman took the stage with Dr. Oz on Oct. 25 — just two weeks before Election Day — tipped the scale in Fetterman’s favor.
The early vote, political experts in Pennsylvania said, went largely for Fetterman. Fetterman is thought to have also benefited from a strong turnout of Democratic voters supporting gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro — the state’s current attorney general — against Republican candidate Doug Mastriano.
Mastriano was handpicked by former President Donald Trump. But Mastriano, who is a 2020 election denier who attended the Jan. 6 rally in DC that resulted in the attack on the US Capitol, was largely seen as a longshot. But Democrats turned out to make sure Mastriano did not succeed Wolf, and some of that vote led to higher Fetterman support simply from party-line voters.
I’m so humbled,” Fetterman said while wearing his signature hoodie. “This campaign has always been about fighting for everyone who’s ever been knocked down that ever got back up.”
Dr. Oz has yet to concede, saying only late Tuesday night, “When all the ballots are counted, we believe we will win this race.”
Fetterman Faithful Win
Fetterman bettors who risked money on him becoming Pennsylvania’s next US senator are being financially rewarded this morning after PredictIt closed out the market.
Each Fetterman share has been redeemed at $1, meaning bettors who grabbed shares yesterday at 40 cents are netting 60 cents per stock option. Each Dr. Oz share is now worthless.
PredictIt allows bettors to purchase up to $850 in stock in each market. At 40 cents, the maximum allotment of shares one could have purchased on Election Day was roughly 2,125 shares. That would equate to a net win of $1,275 before PredictIt fees.
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