PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

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It's nice seeing Oz get rightfully dunked on, but the national environment could still pull him over the line. If he wins this race, I will lose any faith in the American swing voter. Oz is a vile scammer who belongs in prison.

Yeah, but to be fair, he wouldn’t be the first person who got wealthy off of scamming people to win an important race, not to mention a Senate seat isn’t even the highest office a wealthy scam artist has held recently. I haven’t had “faith” in swing voters in a long time.

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Wild fact I just learned: if Fetterman wins, it'll only be the third time since the birth of the Republican Party that PA has been represented by two Democrats. There was one short stretch from 1945-1947 and an even shorter stretch when Arlen Specter switched parties, and that's it. Potential history in the making here!

Yeah, while Class III has been rough for Democrats in general recently, the Class III PA seat has really been cursed for them. It’ll be interesting to see if they can actually pull it off this year.

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There’s no way Fetterman wins by as much as Peters did in 2014, though it really does look like Oz could lose even in a great year for Republicans. Not moving this out of the Toss-Up column unless the state of the race doesn’t improve for Oz in October (which I think it will, at least a bit), but I didn’t imagine Oz would be doing this badly.

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There’s no way Fetterman wins by as much as Peters did in 2014, though it really does look like Oz could lose even in a great year for Republicans. Not moving this out of the Toss-Up column unless the state of the race doesn’t improve for Oz in October (which I think it will, at least a bit), but I didn’t imagine Oz would be doing this badly.

I'm genuinely curious though, other than some GOPers coming home to Oz, which I agree is likely, what else is likely to change for Oz's favor though that hasn't already?

Objectively, things have only gotten worse for him as time has gone on, so what is supposed to change between now and November?

My point is that things can always go either way bc anything can happen, but the deeper we get into midterm season, this excuse of "well things can always snap back for Rs!" gets less and less likely as we're now out 3 months from the primary itself and things have gotten worse, not better.

I’m guessing that some voters who don’t like Oz will hold their nose and vote for him to give Republicans the Senate. Not saying it’ll be enough for him to win, but I think a big margin for Fetterman just isn’t that realistic in this environment, and that this race is probably going to end up being at least somewhat close.

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There’s no way Fetterman wins by as much as Peters did in 2014, though it really does look like Oz could lose even in a great year for Republicans. Not moving this out of the Toss-Up column unless the state of the race doesn’t improve for Oz in October (which I think it will, at least a bit), but I didn’t imagine Oz would be doing this badly.

I'm genuinely curious though, other than some GOPers coming home to Oz, which I agree is likely, what else is likely to change for Oz's favor though that hasn't already?

Objectively, things have only gotten worse for him as time has gone on, so what is supposed to change between now and November?

My point is that things can always go either way bc anything can happen, but the deeper we get into midterm season, this excuse of "well things can always snap back for Rs!" gets less and less likely as we're now out 3 months from the primary itself and things have gotten worse, not better.

I’m guessing that some voters who don’t like Oz will hold their nose and vote for him to give Republicans the Senate. Not saying it’ll be enough for him to win, but I think a big margin for Fetterman just isn’t that realistic in this environment, and that this race is probably going to end up being at least somewhat close.

What is "this environment" though? We're looking at a neutral environment as of right now, so I mean I'm not saying I expect Fetterman to win by 10, but I don't think we can use the 'environment' argument as much as maybe two months ago given that the environment itself is pretty close to = for both sides, give just how much the GOP is imploding upon itself with better news for Ds in different areas

I’m skeptical that the environment will be neutral in November. However, even assuming an even GCB, I’d expect Republicans to narrowly win a generic D vs. R race. Oz seems set to underperform a generic R by several points, but to me, that would imply a 3, maybe 4-point win for Fetterman rather than a mid-high single digit win.

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I suppose the Washington equivalent would be something like “Worshington has many lovely cities like ‘seh-quim’ and ‘poo-yallup.’”

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Fetterman has done the best job of defining Oz early, and his narrative resonates (as opposed to narratives about Republicans being controversial, which often fall flat.) That’s not to say that the race is over, far from it, but Oz has to find a better response to the “he’s a wealthy outsider who wants to swoop in and buy a Senate seat.”

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Now three Republicans are running on this? I know that Republicans have always wanted this, but it’s not popular at all and advertising this position seems like a terrible idea that allows Democrats to spin them as the ones who are out of touch and don’t care about people.

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Because Fetterman is slandering him with xenophobic and classist attacks

Classist against who? Rich people?

Yes. There's nothing wrong with having wealth. Even Fetterman should admit this, his dear leader Bernie is a millionaire with three houses.

There is nothing wrong with having wealth, but there is something wrong thinking you can buy a Senate seat.

And having a “I got mine, f*** you” mentality.”

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I'm sure the hand-wringing about Fetterman's stroke would be happening all the same if he had run as the "moderate" while Lamb had run as the "progressive." Totally has nothing whatsoever to do with ideological tribalism, nope nope nope.

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Am I a terrible person for thinking it would be perfect if Fetterman had put "doctor" in quotation marks?

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Based on the replies, I was expecting to hear Fetterman literally gasping for air and rambling unintelligibly. I actually watched the clip, and… he sounds a bit tired I guess? And made one slip up or two? This does not seem like some damning sound bite that will cost him 4-5% of the vote like some are acting like it will, particularly if it was just in that particular moment that he slipped up once and the rest of his speech was fine. To be clear, Fetterman doesn’t have this race in the bag and he never has, but this feels like quite the overreaction. Not that this sort of thing isn’t par for the course for Atlas.

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Guys, let’s not get distracted and remember to be concerned because F E T T E R M A N  H A D  A  S T R O K E

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This is pretty stunning. Article on Chester County voter reg:

November 2021: D+5,069
June 2022: D+4,999
August 2022: D+6,470

https://www.pottsmerc.com/2022/09/10/after-dobbs-democratic-numbers-surge-in-chester-county/

Yeah, I don’t think Fetterman will have any issue doing well in Chester. It’d be interesting to see if the trend is similar in other suburban Philly counties.

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Any particular reason we’re rehashing Fetterman’s stroke months after the election? Did something else happen or is this just nostalgia?