What Did John Fetterman Actually Say About Who Will Win Pennsylvania?

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) went viral on Wednesday for making a prediction about who will win Pennsylvania.

“I think if you match up Trump and Harris… and I do believe he’s going to win in Pennsylvania, and of course, it’s going to be close, but I’ve been maintaining that whether it’s Biden, whether it was Clinton or whether it’s now with Vice President Harris,” Fetterman said during an appearance on Newsmax. “It’s going to be very close.” 

WE AGREE, FETTERMAN: “If you match up Trump and Harris … I do believe he’s gonna win Pennsylvania.” pic.twitter.com/OR4ImVXABA

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 7, 2024

Would John Fetterman actually say this, even if he thought it was true? I was skeptical. So, I checked out the entire interview.

For starters, host Greta Van Susteren asked Fetterman, "What is the strategy to win Pennsylvania when it's so closely divided?"

"There is, you know, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but, actually, there's a lot of, cities within that as well too," Fetterman said. "I grew up in York, and that's fairly large. You have Lancaster, you have Harrisburg, you have Erie, and you have, Allentown, and you have a lot of other cities as well too. So, it's not just one gigantic rural part. There's a lot of mixed kinds of communities all across Pennsylvania. And there are small rural ones and there's, of course, big blue ones, but there's other ones like Erie."

Fetterman went on to explain that Erie is the bellwether for the state. "And I fundamentally believe that whoever can carry, their argument and win Erie will win Pennsylvania," he said.

He pointed out that Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 because he carried Erie, but he thinks Walz "will be the kind of guy that will resonate there much more than" J.D. Vance.

How did Trump win the state 2016? "Well, I I think I think that-that happened is is that-that Trump did—he created a a strong, connection with the people in Pennsylvania. I mean, that's undeniable as well. And he created, margins in those small rural counties that that Romney wasn't able to create back in 2012 as well in the sixties, maybe touching closer to 70, but Trump did that into the eighties and that's allowed him to scale."

Related: MSNBC Data Guru Has Bad News for Democrats About Walz

"And he won by only about 45,000 votes. And I would like to remind everybody that it seems incredibly unlikely that he can outperform his ceiling back in 2016 before a blood of the significant amount of baggage and things happened since then. And now I fundamentally believe that Harris is gonna be able to carry, Pennsylvania regardless of whoever she's chosen to be her running mate as well too."

That's when he said, "I think if you match up Trump and Harris, which I think that's really what that this is really about, and I do believe he's gonna win Pennsylvania. And, of course, it's gonna be close, but I've been maintaining that whether it's Biden, whether it was Clinton, or whether now it's with vice president Harris. It's gonna be very close, and I do believe she's gonna prevail."

So, clearly, Fetterman was always pushing the idea that he thinks Harris is going to win Pennsylvania. He would never say otherwise. He merely misspoke when he said "he" instead of "she."

Of course, prior to Joe Biden dropping out, Donald Trump had a nearly five-point lead in the RealClearPolitics average in the Keystone State, and old Scranton Joe has roots in Pennsylvania and was still getting clobbered. Even back then, Fetterman was saying that Biden would win the state.