Fetterman and Oz Meet in Only Debate in Pivotal Pennsylvania US Senate Race

Mark Niquette and Gregory Korte
·3 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz will clash on Tuesday night in one of the most anticipated and high-stakes debates of the concluding midterm election cycle in their hotly contested race for a Pennsylvania US Senate seat, with control of the upper chamber at stake.

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The debate at 8 p.m. Eastern time is taking place in Harrisburg exactly two weeks before the Nov. 8 midterm election. Democrat Fetterman’s recovery from a May stroke will be a central focus of the event.

Fetterman, the commonwealth’s current lieutenant governor, has been deemed fit for office by his primary care doctor, though he sometimes has trouble processing spoken words -- an issue that was put on display in recent weeks as he relied on software during an NBC News interview. He will use a similar closed captioning device for the hour-long televised debate.

He and Oz, the celebrity physician known for his long-running “Dr. Oz” television show, are locked in one of a handful of toss-up races that will determine control of the US Senate. The double-digit polling lead that Fetterman commanded as recently as August has all but vanished under withering attacks from Oz and his allies on the issues of crime and inflation.

The FiveThirtyEight average of polls shows Fetterman with a lead of 2.3 percentage points over Oz, while the RealClearPolitics average has the Democrat ahead by 1.3 percentage points. A CBS News poll released Tuesday had Fetterman ahead of Oz 51% to 49% with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

The event takes place amid signs of growing Republican momentum in the final stretch of the elections as concerns about the economy overwhelm voter angst around the US Supreme Court’s rollback of federal abortion rights, an issue that galvanized Democrats over the summer.

Fetterman’s campaign sought to temper expectations before the Tuesday night encounter, citing the challenges associated with his recovery, his lackluster debate performances before the stroke and Oz’s sheen from hosting a television show for nearly 13 years.

He will be allowed the use of real-time, human-generated transcripts to help him understand the questions and Oz’s answers, but there could be delays and errors that could cause misunderstandings -- issues that are “impossible to control and unavoidable,” Fetterman strategists Rebecca Katz and Brendan McPhillips said in a memo released Monday by the campaign.

Berwood Yost, director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll, likened the lower expectations for Fetterman to the low bar for Republican Herschel Walker in his Oct. 14 debate in Georgia with Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock.

Oz’s campaign showed during the GOP primary debates that he will be prepared and give a good presentation, but he needs to be careful not to be too aggressive pressing the issue of Fetterman’s health, said Pennsylvania Republican strategist Vince Galko.

“If there is a physical issue or other issue that it’s clear that the lieutenant governor needs assistance or having some kind of health issue, that’ll become very clear, I think, early on in the debate,” Galko said. “It’s up to the voters to decide.”

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