JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — President Donald Trump publicly urged Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman to leave the Democratic Party and join the GOP, speaking to reporters Saturday as congressional midterm elections draw near.
Trump made the remarks after stepping off Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews following a campaign rally in Tennessee. The president argued that the first-term senator would benefit politically from making the leap across the aisle.
“I’d love to see him as a Republican,” Trump said, according to ABC News. “He does better as a Republican than he does as a Democrat.”
Trump also commended Fetterman personally, calling him a “very solid person” with “great common sense” and suggesting that the lawmaker could struggle to secure his party’s backing for a future term. “It’s going to be hard for him to get the nomination as a Democrat, but I’d love to have him as a Republican,” Trump added, as reported by the New York Post.
A spokesperson for Fetterman did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding Trump’s overture.
Strains with fellow Democrats
Fetterman, who took office in 2023, has maintained that he intends to remain a Democrat. In a May essay published in The Washington Post, he dismissed speculation about defecting, writing that he would make a “terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.”
Records show Fetterman voted alongside Senate Democrats nearly 90 percent of the time during his initial years in the chamber. That figure dropped to just below 81 percent during the current congressional session, Fox News Digital reported via the New York Post.
The Pennsylvania lawmaker has increasingly diverged from the progressive wing of his party on border security, immigration, and foreign policy matters, including the conflict involving Iran and Israel. Fetterman has also maintained a cross-party friendship with Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama and has utilized GOP fundraising platforms to raise campaign money, the New York Post reported.
Tensions flared further in September when Fetterman recorded an introductory video for Pennsylvania’s other senator, Republican Dave McCormick, at the Republican midterm convention. In that address, Fetterman remarked, “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life,” The Guardian reported. During a festival appearance in Austin later that month, Fetterman also accidentally referred to himself as a “lifelong Republican” before quickly acknowledging the verbal slip.
Midterm control of the Senate
Trump’s public recruitment effort comes at a crucial moment for the balance of power in Washington. Republicans are fighting to preserve their Senate majority next month as Democrats aim to pick up four seats to reach a 51-seat threshold.
Democrats have expressed growing optimism about reclaiming chamber control amid the economic fallout tied to the Iran war and headwinds facing the Trump administration. If Democrats were to recapture the majority, Fetterman’s role as a centrist swing vote could expand significantly, potentially curbing any motivation to abandon his party.
Senate party switches that altered the majority have occurred rarely in modern history. In 2001, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican Party to caucus as an independent, delivering control to Democrats. Eight years later, former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter departed the GOP to become a Democrat, briefly providing the party with a 60-seat supermajority.
Whether Fetterman addresses Trump’s invitation directly remains to be seen, as do the long-term political ramifications for his standing among Pennsylvania primary voters ahead of his next reelection campaign.
