John Fetterman, the maverick Democratic senator who has provoked widespread anger by increasingly siding with Republicans, is to be challenged for his Pennsylvania seat by a democratic socialist candidate who is originally from Gaza.
Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American, said he would run in a primary to be the Democratic nominee in ۲۰۲۸, when Fetterman’s seat is up for re-election.
The move is the first sign of Fetterman’s weakened position in the party since the Democrats won back control of the Senate in last week’s US midterm elections, when the party won at least ۵۴ of the upper chamber’s ۱۰۰ seats.
The prospect of a comfortable Senate majority in effect eliminates the possibility of Fetterman’s vote being decisive, a relief to Democrat strategists who feared he could no longer be relied on for support on contentious issues.
Fetterman had already caused widespread disillusionment among many Pennsylvania Democrats, who campaigned for him in the ۲۰۲۲ midterms when he ran as a progressive outsider.
But he has sparked anger by, on occasion, speaking out in support of Donald Trump, who in turn has praised Fetterman as “a great guy” and said he would “love” him to become a Republican.
Moor, ۴۲, a writer and journalist who was born in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and has previously written for the Guardian, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was “not really running against Fetterman”.
“I’m running for good government. I’m running for the rule of law. I’m running because I believe in America,” he said.
But his Palestinian background throws down the gauntlet to Fetterman’s vocally pro-Israel stance, which has become increasingly strident since the ۷ October ۲۰۲۳ attack by Hamas that left about ۱,۲۰۰ people on the Israeli side dead. More than ۷۴,۰۰۰ Palestinians in Gaza – most women and children – were killed in Israel’s retaliatory military response.
Fetterman has said he has no intention of leaving the Democrats but strongly suggested would change his mind if the party became “anti-Israel”.
“That’s my red line,” Fetterman said last July. “If the Democratic party becomes official anti-Israel, then that’s when I would force me out. If they make it the official platform of the party, then that’s a much different situation.”
Fetterman has met more often with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, than with Philadelphia’s mayor, Cherelle Parker, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Moor, by contrast, said he supports withdrawing US aid from Israel and imposing sanctions aimed at securing equal rights for Palestinians.
Democrats say Moor is unlikely to be the only challenger to Fetterman, who provoked outrage in his own party in September by sending a video message to the Republicans’ midterm convention in Texas in which he praised Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, Dave McCormick.
“I’m pretty confident that you’ll see some bigger, mainstream kind of names, involved,” said Mike Weidinger, a veteran Lancaster county Democrat with state-wide connections, who cited Chris Deluzio, a representative from the Pittsburgh area, and Malcolm Kenyatta, a Pennsylvania state legislator, as likely challengers.
“Generally people think [Fetterman] either misrepresented himself when he ran the first time, or he changed completely from what he said he was,” said Weidinger.
“We just had an election here in Pennsylvania where a lot of us busted our ass for [Pennsylvania governor Josh] Shapiro and a lot of other people, and he didn’t spend one penny or do one thing for a single Democrat candidate here last week.”
On the possibility of Fetterman joining the Republicans, he added: “If he wants to switch, he can switch. If it would have been ۵۱ to ۴۹, it would have mattered. But it doesn’t matter now.”
