Following last week's single debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race, election analysts and GOP operatives alike obsessed over whether voters would sour on Democratic nominee John Fetterman because the aftereffects of his stroke were plainly evident.
Fetterman's rejoinder has been that while he's on the road to recovery, his GOP rival, TV huckster Mehmet Oz, will be his same old self in perpetuity.
"I'll be much better in January, but he will still be a fraud," Fetterman told Pennsylvania Democrats, echoing remarks he has made elsewhere. "My bargain with all of you, my promise to every one of you, is to be that 51st vote, calling to eliminate the filibuster."
Voters seem to agree on that point. As I wrote last week, the real determinative factor in the Pennsylvania Senate race may actually be whether Oz can overcome his ick factor.
Two post-debate polls now suggest Oz's performance did nothing to improve his sky-high unfavorable rating with voters. In fact, Oz's favorables both before and after that debate are remarkably similar—and they are not good.
A pre-debate CNN/SSRS poll (Oct. 13 - 17) found that Oz was 17 points underwater among likely voters, 38% favorable - 55% unfavorable, and 21 points underwater among registered voters, 35% - 56%.
Fetterman fared far better in the survey, with a 48% favorable - 46% unfavorable rating among likely voters and a similar 46% - 45% favorable rating among registered voters.
Overall, the CNN/SSRS poll gave Fetterman a narrow 2-point edge over Oz, 51% - 49%.
Now, two post-debate polls show very similar findings.
Monmouth University
Oz: 40% - 53% favorable, -13
Fetterman: 47% - 46% favorable, +1
Muhlenberg College/Morning Call
Oz: 31% - 55% favorable, -24
Fetterman: 45% - 46%, -1
Though many observers questioned the wisdom of putting Fetterman on stage last week, he has maintained that it was important for him to show up.
“I just always understood that it wasn’t going to be easy," Fetterman told CNN Tuesday of his stroke. "I am five months into recovery from that, but I thought it was important that I show up and I did it. And at the end of the day, we did, I think, make some important points,” he added.
Ultimately, Monmouth concluded, the "Senate debate shows little impact."
While Monmouth never asked a direct head-to-head question of voters, 48% said they would either definitely or probably vote for Fetterman, while 44% said the same of Oz (almost unchanged from the outfit’s 48% - 43% split favoring Fetterman last month).
The Muhlenberg head-to-head showed Fetterman and Oz tied at 47%, but the sample size was on the smaller side, under 500, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 points.
Another warning sign for Oz in the Monmouth poll was the fact that many respondents felt he wasn't in touch with their day-to-day concerns as voters. While only 42% of registered voters said Oz understood their concerns, 55% of voters believed Fetterman did.
Make no mistake, the Pennsylvania Senate contest remains tight, while Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro is a double-digit favorite to win his race against forced birther and Christian nationalist Doug Mastriano.
But the question driving the race still appears to be whether Oz can rise above the highly unfavorable view voters have of him rather than Fetterman's fitness for office.
In other words, a stroke recovery is temporary, assholery is forever.
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The 2022 midterms are just around the corner, and you sent us a ton of fantastic questions for this week’s episode of The Downballot. Among the many topics we cover: which states are likely to report results slowly—and how will those results change over time; the House districts that look like key bellwethers for how the night might go, and which might offer surprises; why and how Democrats make the hard decisions on which races to triage; the top legislative chambers to keep an eye on; and plenty more!
