Comment Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic Senate candidate, will hold his first public rally next week since suffering a near-fatal stroke four days before the May 17 primary, his campaign announced Friday. The rally is scheduled for Erie, Pa., one of the state’s swing counties, on Aug. 12. Fetterman only recently started attending fundraising events again and has made a few brief public appearances — but nothing on his scale is planned next week. “Before the 2020 election, I said if I could know just one fact about the results, I could tell you who was going to win Pennsylvania. Whoever wins Erie County will win Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said in a statement announcing the rally. “Erie County is the most important county in Pennsylvania. I’ve visited Erie dozens and dozens of times in the past and I’m honored and proud to be back campaigning here.” Donald Trump won Erie County in 2016 and Joe Biden took it in 2020. Fetterman faces celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in the November election. Oz has remained active on the campaign trail since winning the Republican primary, though he has faced criticism for reportedly taking trips to Ireland and Palm Beach, Florida. Despite his absence from the campaign trail, a recent poll showed Fetterman with the advantage. Fetterman had an 11-point lead over Oz, 47 percent to 36 percent, in a Fox News poll released July 28. 3 percent supported independent candidate Everett Stern and 13 percent supported someone else or were undecided. In an interview late last month with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — his first media interview since his stroke — Fetterman said he felt ready to get back on track. “I might miss a word every now and then in a conversation, or I might find two words. Even then, I think that’s rare,” Fetterman said. “So I feel like we’re ready to run, and that’s the only problem I have. That’s the absolute truth, 100 percent.” Fetterman’s campaign office announced on May 15, two days before the primary, that he had suffered a stroke “caused by a clot from my heart that was in A-fib rhythm for too long.” Doctors worked to “quickly and completely remove the clot, reversing the stroke, and got my heart under control,” Fetterman said in the statement released by his campaign. Doctors attached a pacemaker with a defibrillator. He told the Post-Gazette that he has “no physical limitations,” walks four to five miles every day in 90-degree heat, understands words well and has no memory loss. He said he works with a speech therapist and sometimes has trouble hearing. The race to fill the seat held by retiring Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R) is considered one of the most competitive in the nation and will help determine majority control of the Senate. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s campaign arm, is mocking Fetterman by counting down his days off the track and a picture of him with the words “Have you seen this person?” He sent out another release hours before the Fetterman campaign announcement, saying, “Another Fetterman-Less Friday.”
