JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (AP) — President Donald Trump openly encouraged Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania to switch parties and become a Republican just weeks before the midterm elections could reshape control of Congress.
“I’d love to see him as a Republican,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Saturday as he returned to Washington from a rally in Tennessee. “He does better as a Republican than he does as a Democrat.”
The comments were among the most direct overtures by Trump to woo Fetterman into the GOP, a matter of growing importance as the party could lose its Senate majority in next month’s elections. With his everyman appeal, Fetterman was a Democratic star when he was first elected to the Senate in 2022. But during his time in Washington, he has split with Democrats on issues ranging from immigration to Israel, leading to speculation that he might switch parties.
A representative for Fetterman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fetterman has repeatedly rejected the notion of becoming a Republican, writing in The Washington Post in May that he would be a “terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.” His relationship with fellow Democrats became more tenuous after he recorded a video for the Republican midterm convention last month praising his fellow Pennsylvania senator, Republican Dave McCormick, suggesting there were extremists in his party.
“I’m always going to stand with America,” Fetterman said in the video. “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life.”
Such flirtations with the GOP could make it extremely difficult for Fetterman to win the Democratic nomination for another term in the Senate, a prospect Trump raised on Saturday as he encouraged the party switch.
Democrats need to pick up four seats to retake the Senate majority, a once remote prospect that remains challenging for the party. But Trump’s unpopularity and the economic fallout from the Iran war have intensified headwinds for the GOP, making Democrats more bullish about a path to Senate control.
If Democrats picked up the four seats for a 51-seat majority, that could potentially put Fetterman in an influential position, reducing the incentive to switch parties.
The last senator whose party switch affected control of the chamber was Jim Jeffords of Vermont, who left the GOP in 2001 to give Democrats a narrow majority. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision to abandon Republicans in 2009 helped Democrats achieve a supermajority.
Sloan reported from Cedar Rapids, Iowa