TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Bobby Maggio, Campaign Manager
MEMO: What 2021 Means for PA in 2022

Last Tuesday night’s election was a small taste of just how hard the 2022 midterms could be for Democrats. With Terry McAuliffe losing by two points in Virginia, a state that President Biden won by 10%, Democrats are in for a very difficult election in Pennsylvania. After all, Biden only won PA by 2%.

Fortunately, in what will be the most important Senate race in the country next year, we have the ideal candidate for a year when traditional Democrats, and traditional candidates, are likely to struggle. Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman appeals across the political spectrum, inspires genuine grassroots enthusiasm, connects with working class voters, and has proven that he can win votes in the reddest counties in Pennsylvania.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats cannot afford to run the same old playbook. To have our best chance at flipping this crucial open seat, Democrats can nominate John Fetterman, the only candidate in the race who has already proven he can run and win statewide in PA.

John doesn’t have to convince people he’s not like other politicians – they can see it for themselves. With his straight-talking, no-BS style, John defies conventional labels and appeals across party lines. He is the rare candidate with a bold populist record and the proven ability to appeal to independents and voters in Pennsylvania’s reddest and most rural counties.

If we learned anything earlier this week, it’s that Democrats can’t continue to completely cede rural counties to Republicans. For years in Pennsylvania it has been said that winning a general election as a Democrat is all about winning Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. If we just run up the margins in urban areas, the thinking goes, then Democrats don’t have to worry about the largely red, rural counties that make up the rest of the state.

This Election Day showed that margins matter, even in counties that Democrats are never going to win. Ceding county after county to Republicans is a losing strategy. John has always believed in every county, every vote. And he is not willing to write off any region, any community, any part of Pennsylvania.

In 2018, when John ran on the ticket with Governor Tom Wolf, he traveled the state and talked to voters in every corner — regardless of how red or blue. And with John as his running mate, Gov. Wolf won by more than almost a million more votes than he did in 2014. They did it by chipping away at Republican margins in rural counties.

John and Gov. Wolf won Berks County, Beaver County, Cumberland County, Erie County, and Luzerne County, all counties where Democrats have struggled at times in recent years. This notion that rural voters are immovable proved flat-out false. If that was the case, John wouldn’t be serving as Lieutenant Governor today.

John is running a true 67 county campaign across the Commonwealth. Since we launched this campaign, John has traveled across Pennsylvania, holding events in some of the Commonwealth’s reddest counties.

In August, for example, our campaign hosted a meet and greet in Mercer County, which Trump won by over 25% in 2020, a county that some Democrats wouldn’t even bother going to. We held an event at a local bar and had roughly 100 people come out to meet John and see him speak — in Sharon, PA, a town with a population of just 13,000 people.

John doesn’t just wait until it’s election season to show up in rural Pennsylvania. As Lieutenant Governor, John traveled to all 67 counties to conduct a listening tour around legalizing marijuana. Whether it’s supporting down ballot local candidates or meeting constituents in every county, John has consistently shown up to rural counties and built strong relationships with communities on the ground.

Additionally, all the recent polling demonstrates that John’s appeal is broad. According to a poll by Data for Progress, John is the only Democratic candidate who beats a Republican opponent in a general election match up. John is also the only Democratic candidate who leads both potential Republican candidates amongst independents.

Democrats cannot afford to lose in Pennsylvania. We have to nominate a candidate who can excite the base and appeal to the unique independent voters of Pennsylvania.

In order to win, Democrats must compete everywhere and meet voters where they are at. In John Fetterman, Democrats have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to turn this Senate seat blue and to have an unabashed champion of the working class represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate.