Seven Things You Might Not Know About John Fetterman

1. He comes from a little town called Braddock. Located in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, this town has one of the highest violent crime rates, worst poverty levels, and longest continuous declines in population in U.S. history, from 20,000 to 2,000 over the course of 65 years.
2. He was elected mayor by a single vote, his own, but he won reelection twice for his efforts to create opportunity for youth and bring business back to the town. His approach was so innovative and progressive that he even gave multiple TED Talks (Video 1/Video 2/Video 3/Video 4) on his work as mayor. During his 13 years as mayor, he had Braddock's area code as well as the dates of all five murders tattooed on his arm; thanks in part to his work, he didn't have to add any during his last five years.
3. Braddock is full of history. Named after Edward Braddock, who was killed in his first engagement in the French and Indian War, an engagement that launched the military career of George Washington, Fetterman joked that the town "wasn't off to a great start" with this very name. Still it is full of history, home to Andrew Carnegie's first and only remaining operational steel mill in Western Pennsylvania.
4. He's not an ordinary politician. Across the street from that steel mill, he lives with his wife Gisele and their three young children in the loft of a retrofitted auto body shop. He dislikes pomp, with nearly all public appearances being made in gym shorts and sweatshirts. As a result, he refused to live in the lieutenant governor's mansion when elected to the office in 2018 (Pennsylvania being the only state to still have one) and opened up the building's swimming pool to local youth during the summers.
5. He was among the first to call out Trump and his Big Lie. Fetterman went viral between 2019 and 2021 for his colorful language blasting then-President Trump's policy decisions. In 2021, when the GOP-controlled Pennsylvania Senate over which he presided refused to swear in a Democratic incumbent because his Republican opponent was alleging voter fraud influenced the results of the election in their district, Fetterman loudly decried their efforts to stop democracy in its tracks and was escorted out of the chamber by the Republican majority. The Democratic incumbent was sworn in a week later, and Fetterman was featured on national news outlets throughout January 2021 to speak on the damage the Big Lie was causing.
6. While he lost his previous Senate primary in 2016, he won his 2022 bid with 59 percent of the vote (compared to Conor Lamb's 33 percent) and a majority of the votes in all 67 counties in the state of Pennsylvania.
7. Fetterman, who is six-foot-nine, used to be significantly heavier, having lost 150 pounds in the five years between 2013 and 2018. Still, as a result of both his height and his previous weight, he suffered an atrial fibrillation and a blood clot that caused a stroke on May 13th, 2022. He had a pacemaker implanted and is expected to make a full recovery. In spite of his health scare, he is off to a head start, raising millions of dollars for his campaign while Oz and McCormick still fight over the results of the GOP primary.