Breaking: Pennsylvania Democrats Sound The Alarm As Aftermath Of Fetterman’s Debate Reveals Extent of Damage

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The Republican candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz, in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race has pulled ahead of his opponent, Democrat Lt. Gov. John Fetterman according to the latest polling.

The lead is nearly three percentage points. The same poll showed the two candidates tied last week. 

The Insider Advantage poll surveyed 750 likely voters in the state the day following the highly-anticipated debate. This is the first time Oz is leading in a major poll. 

John Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke he suffered in May, had a difficult time getting his words out during the debate. 

Tom Bonier, who is a Democratic pollster took to Twitter to discredit the poll. His theory is that it undersamples younger voters and oversamples the voters between the ages of 40 and 64 who he characterizes as mostly GOP voters. 

His tweet read, “Well, this is the first poll of the cycle that actually made me laugh out loud. The likely voter sample has voters under the age of 40 at 14%. They were 25% of the electorate in ’18 and 28% in ’20. This poll should be entirely ignored.” 

The gap between Oz and Fetterman was as much as 8.7 points in July with the Democrat leading. 

RealClearPolitics average of polls shows a 0.3 percentage point lead for Fetterman, but the polling data aggregator is predicting a win for Oz in November. 

Anyone who saw the debate on Tuesday night realizes that Fetterman’s recent stroke has left him incapable of serving as a United States Senator. 

Oz agreed to allow Fetterman to use a closed-captioning system to aid with his auditory processing issues but he still had trouble expressing himself during the exchange. 

The Insider Advantage poll released yesterday shows that 47.5 percent of likely voters support Oz, the Trump-endorsed candidate. 44.8 percent back the Democrat Fetterman. Libertarian candidate Erik Gerhardt brings in just 2.8 percent of the response, while 1.3 percent back another candidate and roughly four percent remain undecided.

According to the poll, Oz is doing relatively well among black respondents, with close to 24% backing him. He is also the favored candidate among the 18-39 and the 40-64 age demos. 

Fetterman has the advantage with those 65 and older. Oz has a big advantage in the all-important independent group with a 65.9% lead over Fetterman’s 22.5%. 

Republicans are hoping that Oz can hold this seat that Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, is vacating. If Oz wins, the GOP will only need to flip one seat in these midterms to gain control of the Senate. 

The Democrats are starting to panic in the closing days of the campaigns. Chuck Schumer was caught on a hot mic the other day expressing his concerns. 

While he said John Fetterman’s debate performance “didn’t hurt us too much,” he described the Georgia Senate race as “going downhill” for Democrats to President Biden.