PITTSBURGH — U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio said this weekend he might run against Sen. John Fetterman in the 2028 Democratic primary, moving a months-long feud between Pennsylvania’s senior senator and his own party’s House delegation from social media into a stated intention.
Asked about primarying Fetterman, Deluzio told The Lever’s David Sirota, “I might.” On NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday,” he said, “I might, I haven’t decided that,” and added that he would “deal with 2028 when we get past the” midterms. On Monday evening, he told KDKA-TV he was thinking about running, KDKA reporter Ricky Sayer posted.
The trigger was a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday, which the Journal said drew on verified internal texts and more than a dozen of Fetterman’s former staffers and colleagues, describing him skipping hearings, canceling on constituents and declining in-state appearances. Fetterman told people he was sick to avoid a meeting with a group of paralyzed military veterans from Pennsylvania and appeared on Fox News instead, CBS News reported from the texts. Of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia representatives raising vaccine and Medicaid concerns, he wrote, “I’m convinced they just want free trips to DC.”
Fetterman told CNN the account was “Per usual — lies, half-truths, innuendos, smears and anonymous,” blamed disgruntled former employees and said the texts were “stripped of any context and circumstances.” He called the hospital line “a dumb joke, and for that, I sincerely apologize.” On texts in which he balked at the length of funerals for three police officers killed near York last year, he said he met the chief and the families privately at a June fundraiser.
Deluzio posted Friday that “between the laziness, disrespect, and willingness to carry water for a foreign government, it shows us something we already know: this man has no sense of duty.” He added, “We in Pennsylvania will do something about it in 2028.”
Rep. Brendan Boyle called Fetterman “a disgrace” and “a lazy trust fund baby who is too lazy to do the job.” Former Rep. Conor Lamb, who lost the 2022 Senate primary to Fetterman, wrote, “John, if there is a decent bone left in your body, just quit.” State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, wrote that the report was “horrifying, but not new to many of us in PA.” Spotlight PA collected the delegation’s reaction.
The fracture predates the Journal story. When Punchbowl News asked Pennsylvania House Democrats in April whether they would back Fetterman’s reelection as a Democrat, none would. Rep. Madeleine Dean said she disagreed with many of his votes; Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said she was “confused by it”; Rep. Summer Lee said the decision was Fetterman’s, “At his own peril.” In March, Fetterman cast the deciding 8-7 committee vote to advance President Donald Trump’s homeland security nominee, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, the only Democrat on the panel to do so, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The numbers are lopsided. A Quinnipiac University poll of 895 Pennsylvania voters taken July 9-13 put Fetterman at 19 percent approval among Democrats and 77 percent among Republicans, with 57 percent of Democrats saying he should leave the party. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
For Lehigh Valley voters, the fight is not abstract. Deluzio, whose district sits around Pittsburgh, has campaigned in more than a dozen stops well outside it, Punchbowl News reported, including for Bob Brooks, the retired firefighter who won May’s four-way primary in the 7th District and faces Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in November. “I can’t imagine any of those candidates and committees would want John Fetterman there to help them,” Deluzio told Punchbowl.
A group calling itself Former Fetterman Staffers, writing anonymously on X, has promised a first “drop” on Sept. 14, when the Senate returns. Fetterman had not publicly responded to Deluzio’s remarks as of Monday evening.
