And if the mid-term elections were played to a heart attack near? Among the handful of states in balance which will draw the majority in the Senate, on November 8, Pennsylvania holds the attention. The race between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz looks very uncertain. She is out of the ordinary because of her dramatic human dimension. Former mayor of Braddock, near Pittsburgh, before becoming lieutenant governor, Mr. Fetterman suffered a heart attack in May, a few days before his party’s primaries. Since then, he has been fighting to reconcile the impossible: a high-intensity campaign and his recovery.
Saturday November 5, Joe Biden and Barack Obama will both be in Pennsylvania to help him cross the last meters. In the evening, Donald Trump will hold a meeting in Latrobe, alongside Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano, candidate for the post of governor and ardent promoter of lies about imaginary fraud during the presidential election of 2020. Not sure that the event be a blessing for the Republican candidate, who has tried to appear as a reassuring and conciliatory suitor. But the general attention is focused on the health of John Fetterman, even though, according to his doctors, his cognitive abilities are not affected.
Now equipped with a pacemaker, he has long remained in the background in the countryside, unable to speak, leaving his digital team to flood the networks with videos mocking the parachuting of his opponent, a millionaire doctor who made a career in television. Team Oz was left very upset and helpless, still having to parry the blows. In return, an adviser suggested that Mr Fetterman would have avoided the heart attack if he had “ate every vegetable in his life”. But, in September, Republican pressure intensified over his state of health, his supposed lack of transparency. John Fetterman issued a certificate from his doctor assuring that he was fit to serve. Above all, he agreed to participate in a televised debate on October 25.
Polarization of the electorate
It was a shipwreck, but its impact will not necessarily be decisive because of the polarization of the electorate. It was almost painful to watch John Fetterman, behind his desk, searching for the words as one would search for a light switch in the dark. The giant with the build of an American footballer, shaved head and salt-and-pepper goatee, had donned a suit and tie for the occasion, which rarely happens to him. He was already wearing one a few days earlier when, at the foot of the presidential plane, he greeted, without enthusiasm, Joe Biden, who had already come to support him.
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