"I don’t think I have EVER seen numbers like these before," exclaims veteran political analyst Chris Cillizza on his So What Substack. Cillizza was shocked by a recent New York Times/Sienna poll that showed Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman's approval numbers were upside down.
Fetterman gets only a 20% approval rating from Democrats. It's the lowest of any Democratic elected official in the United States of America. The lowest.
He not only has only a 20% favorable rating, but he also scores a 68% unfavorable rating among Democrats in the state. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Republicans absolutely adore Fetterman. He's getting 79% approval from the state's GOP voters. He has a 35% very favorable rating with Republicans and 48% somewhat favorable.
What is truly unfathomable is that Fetterman was seen as a successor to Bernie Sanders when he first entered office. The media anointed him as a liberal savior. Since then, of course, his biggest sin has been an ironclad support for the state of Israel. Not only that, the turncoat actually voted to approve some Donald Trump cabinet appointees.
How dare he?
On standard roll-call votes, Fetterman continues to vote alongside Senate Democrats roughly 90% of the time on major procedural and legislative votes. As far as his voting record goes, conservative advocacy organizations, such as Heritage Action, assign him a score of 0%, reflecting his fundamental baseline alignment with standard Democratic positions.
“I, for some strange way, I am more popular with Republicans, which is, it’s confusing because I vote, I vote in the 90s [percentage-wise] Dem line, and I didn’t, and I haven’t vote[d] for the big ticket Trump ones like ‘big, beautiful bill’ or SAVE Act, and for those things,” Fetterman told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo in March. “So, I mean, there’s a lot of misinformation, I guess, but I am guilty of being a very proud supporter of Israel, and then I do support [Operation] Epic Fury.”
John Fetterman is a throwback. He would have been very comfortable in the Democratic Party of Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.), Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.), and Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) in the 1960s. Strong for organized labor, in favor of a muscular U.S. foreign policy, and pro-small business, those Democrats were the majority in the 68-32 Democratic Senate of 1963.
He would not have been a Republican then. He would not be a Republican now.
So What:
Fetterman cannot win a Democratic primary for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2028. Zero chance. With numbers like Fetterman has among Democrats, a potted plant running as a Democrat would beat him. (Remember in 2000 when ficus plants ran against 20 incumbents? Those were the days!)
There are any number of Democrats mentioned as candidates — former Rep. Conor Lamb, Reps. Brendan Boyle, Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio to name a few — but again: ANY of these people would beat Fetterman in a primary.
If I know that, Fetterman definitely knows it.
Which leaves him only three real options heading into 2028:
Retire
Run for president — probably as an independent/third party candidate
Switch parties — become an independent who caucuses with Republicans and run as the de facto GOP nominee for Senate
In truth, Fetterman approaches his job as senator with an air of disinterest. According to a piece by NBC News posted in 2025, Fetterman "has often neglected the duties of his job since being elected, rarely making appearances for noncampaign events in his home state, regularly missing committee hearings, bill mark-ups and votes."
Fetterman "missed 77 of 381 votes, according to GovTrack. That put him in the 90th to the 99th percentile among all senators in terms of total votes missed during each three-month stretch of the calendar in that time."
His attendance at committee meetings is spotty at best. In short, after battling depression in 2023, he may have reached a point where retirement becomes a viable option.
Cillizza believes Fetterman will run in 2028. Unless he gets a partial turnaround and pulls his approval up into the high 30s, I just don't think he'll want to suffer the humiliation.
Might he run for president? Anyone who can pull those kinds of numbers from Republicans in his home state has to think seriously about a run for president.
Fetterman's problem is that his brand is so poisonous with Democrats that his only avenue for a presidential try would be to run as an independent. With no natural base, he wouldn't get very far.
Could he leave the Democrats? That scenario is becoming more likely with each passing month. But Republicans shouldn't expect him to formally join their party.
I think the most likely move by Fetterman is to leave the Democratic party but NOT become a Republican. I think he would become an independent who caucuses with Republicans. (NOTE: In practical Senate terms, that is a distinction without a difference because if Fetterman votes for a Republican to be Senate Leader, that’s all that matters.)
What’s clear in Fetterman’s latest comments is that he has moved considerably from his past public assertions that he would never switch parties. And that that movement coincides very closely with Fetterman committing to run for a second term.
Weird! (Not.)
And we also know that Republicans are somewhere between open to the possibility of a Fetterman and actively working to make it happen.
Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter switched from the GOP to the Democrats in 2009, largely because a tough primary challenge would have made his run as a Republican very iffy. He switched to the Democrats and lost the primary anyway to Rep. Joe Sestak, who lost the election to Republican Pat Toomey.
There's a lesson for Fetterman. He will probably pay a price for not running as a Democrat. How high a price is the question that will determine whether he runs as an independent or not.
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