Well, that didn't take long. After announcing a few weeks ago that he was considering a run, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman must have liked what he heard. He's launching his Senate bid today, making him the first major candidate to enter what will most likely be an all-out battle for the seat left open by Pat Toomey's retirement. Via Politico:
The tattooed, 6-foot-8 Democrat, better known for wearing Carhartt and Dickies gear than a suit and tie, has been a media sensation for years. As a former mayor of Braddock, a struggling steel town outside of Pittsburgh, he has been portrayed as the face of the Rust Belt everywhere from CBS’ "Sunday Morning" to "The Colbert Report."
Fetterman’s high profile has helped him build a fan base of grassroots donors. He raised more than $1.4 million in the weeks before announcing his candidacy.
Fetterman kicked off his Senate campaign by highlighting his support for organized labor, a $15 minimum wage, marijuana legalization and LGBTQ rights. In his launch video, he made an appeal to residents throughout the famously divided state — his motto is “every county, every vote” — and pointed to his efforts to revitalize Braddock.
“I’m running because it’s kind of closing the circle on a 20-year journey I’ve been on,” he said in an interview with POLITICO. “I came to Braddock here 20 years ago in 2001, and it was a deliberate choice to do that. It was one of the most marginalized, forgotten, overlooked and abandoned communities in the state. And I wanted to work [for] issues — the central theme was inequality — and that’s what I did.”
From 2015, when John Fetterman, then mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania ran for U.S. Senate the first time.
