Photo CBS News
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania Capital Star is reporting… After a bruising primary that saw Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz emerge as the GOP nominee by less than 1,000 votes, the celebrity surgeon and TV personality’s general-election campaign got off to a slow start. That left an opening for Democratic nominee John Fetterman to define Oz early on as a carpetbagger from New Jersey and attack him effectively using social media. But with about two months left in the race, Oz appears to be gaining some traction while getting more attention for his immigrant back story and moderate stances on same-sex marriage. He’s also effectively gone after Fetterman for balking at participating in debates and issues such as crime.
The Fetterman campaign rejects this narrative and said Republicans are just coming to aid Oz’s struggling campaign. After being down double-digits in polls from earlier in the summer, Oz has clawed back to within just a few percentage points of Fetterman. A CBS News/YouGov poll from last week showed Fetterman leading Oz, 52% to 47%, while a poll from the Trafalgar Group from this week had Fetterman up, 48% to 46%. The margins of error in those polls were 3.8 percentage points and 2.9 points, respectively. This week, the Washington Post editorial board backed Oz’s call for Fetterman to agree to a debate, and criticized Fetterman for lacking transparency about his health problems associated with his stroke recovery, mirroring Oz’s rhetoric on the issue.
Fetterman had already agreed to one debate on an unspecific date, but he finalized a late October date for the debate following the publication of the editorial. The Philadelphia Inquirer also noted how Republicans believe Oz’s attacks on Fetterman over rising crime and whether his criminal justice reform efforts have been effective placed Fettterman on the defensive for the first time in the race.
