John Fetterman took the stage on a picture-perfect fall day in Bristol this week and reached out his arms, his expansive sweatshirted wing span greeting adoring fans who waved black Fetterman signs. There were outbursts of encouragement and laughs at the familiar campaign-trail jokes throughout his speech.
The week before, Mehmet Oz had met with a group of Black clergy during a celebration of the ministry’s anniversary. At a table with a dozen people talking about gun violence, he listened more than he spoke, asking simple questions like “Why do you think this is happening?” and “What would you do to resolve the issue?” He stayed afterward for a lengthy service to round out a more than three-hour campaign stop in Northeast Philadelphia, outlasting most of the reporters who had come to cover it.
The campaign events in the Pennsylvania Senate race are as different as the candidates. And while TV ads and direct mail are typically more effective in persuading a wide swath of voters than a rally or a roundtable, the differing approaches reflect the strategies, strengths, and limitations of both campaigns in the critical four-week stretch before the election.
