Donald Trump on Saturday openly encouraged Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman to switch parties and become a Republican just weeks before the federal midterm elections could reshape control of Congress.
“I would love to see him Republican,” the presidents told reporters at Joint Base Andrews as he returned to Washington DC after a rally in Tennessee. “He does better as a Republican than as a Democrat.”
The comments constitute one of Trump’s most direct overtures to attract Fetterman to his Republican Party, an increasingly important issue as the Republican Party could lose its Senate majority in November’s midterms. 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 split from Democrats on issues ranging from immigration to Israel, leading to speculation about a party switch.
A representative for Fetterman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fetterman has repeatedly rejected the idea of becoming a Republican, writing in the Washington Post in May that he would be a “terrible Republican who always votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.” His relationship with fellow Democrats became more tenuous after he recorded a video for the midterm Republican convention in September praising fellow Pennsylvania senator, Republican Dave McCormick, suggesting there were extremists in his party.
“I will always stand with America,” Fetterman said in the video. “I will always reject extremes, socialism and this anti-American way of life.”
Also in September, Fetterman described himself, apparently inadvertently, as a “lifelong Republican” during a fireside chat at the Texas Tribune festival in Austin.
Such flirtations with the Republican Party — if not his slip of the tongue in Austin — could make it extremely difficult for Fetterman to win the Democratic nomination for another term in the Senate. Trump raised that prospect Saturday in encouraging party switching.
Democrats need to win four seats to regain the majority in the Senate, a once-distant prospect that remains a challenge for the party. But Trump’s unpopularity and the economic fallout from the Iran war have intensified headwinds for the Republican Party, making Democrats more optimistic about the path to control of the Senate.
If Democrats win all four seats for a 51-seat majority, it could put Fetterman in a position of influence, 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 U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision to abandon Republicans in 2009 helped Democrats secure a supermajority.
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