Senator Jawn Fetterman and the abortion midterms

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Nov 13, 2022

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. (Flickr/Gov. Tom Wolf)

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The midterms were this week and I was fully expecting Democrats to lose the House of Representatives on Tuesday night, but it’s Sunday and Republicans performed so badly that the chamber has yet to be called. Just incredibly embarrassing for them. (And thank god we don’t have to listen to pundits saying Democrats should talk even less about abortion.)

I also expected that the high-stakes Pennsylvania Senate race between John (Jawn) Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz would be too close to call on election night. In 2020, it took four days to call the state for Joe Biden because of mail-in ballots. So I prepared a pre-write saying as much. But shortly after 11pm, people started noticing that the New York Times forecast said Fetterman was “likely” to win, then later “very likely” to win.

I rewrote the story and, at 1am Wednesday, Jezebel published this beautiful headline: John Fetterman Sends Dr. Oz Home to New Jersey.

Jezebel @Jezebel

John Fetterman Sends Dr. Oz Home to New Jersey dlvr.it/ScT1qd

Speaking of Fetterman, Politico’s piece on how they won included this delightful tidbit about the viral Snooki video. (Take a trip down memory lane of Fetterman’s best dunks.)

Susan Rinkunas @sueonthetown

it turns out the infamous Snooki Cameo video dragging Dr. Oz for living in New Jersey only happened because the Fetterman team asked the Situation (Mike Sorrentino) to do it first and he bombed politico.com/news/2022/11/0…

Fetterman adviser Rebecca Katz said the
campaign originally tried to get the Situation, another Jersey Shore star, to do the bit. But "it was terrible," she said.
"He was like, ‘Good luck, Mehmet. We're rooting for you.' It was all wrong." So they went for Snooki instead. Her video landed in their inboxes during a meeting. "We were all screaming," said Katz.

On Saturday, Democrats secured control of the Senate with wins by Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. They can increase their margin to 51-49 by winning the December 6 runoff election between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. That extra seat would be crucial for control of committees, confirming judges, and holding votes: