Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman’s wife, Gisele, will be a “great lady in the Senate,” President Joe Biden said during a campaign stop for the Democratic nominee.
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman suffered a stroke in May, shortly before clinching the Democratic nomination, and has since suffered lingering effects on his speech and comprehension. Fetterman’s stilted recovery has prompted questions from his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz (R), about the Democrat’s ability to serve in the Senate if elected.
DOCTOR WHO CLEARED FETTERMAN FOR ‘FULL DUTY’ IN SENATE DONATED TO HIS CAMPAIGN, FILINGS SHOW
While Fetterman’s doctor has assured the public that he is “recovering well,” the stroke’s visible effects have caused concern. Biden’s comment, made in error, appeared to strike at fears of Fetterman’s faltering health.
Pennsylvania Senate candidate @JohnFetterman‘s wife, Gisele, will be a “great lady in the Senate,” @JoeBiden said during a campaign event for the Democratic nominee.https://t.co/Mikp8HPGPh pic.twitter.com/MDQYxWF28f
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 20, 2022
“Gisele, you’re going to be a great, great lady in the Senate,” Biden said in a rare appearance alongside Fetterman.
Vaulted into the public eye, Gisele Barreto Fetterman has aggressively defended her husband’s health, including demanding “consequences” last week for an NBC journalist who revealed that the lieutenant governor needed closed captioning assistance to understand her questions.
As Gisele Fetterman works to steer her husband’s campaign onto safer ground, her newly prominent role has not gone unnoticed.
Last week, Rolling Stone described Gisele Fetterman as the “de facto candidate” in a report. The reporter repeated the language in a tweet before deleting it.
Kara Voght wrote in the piece, “Then her husband had a stroke four days before the primary for the U.S. Senate. Suddenly, the reluctant political spouse became the de facto candidate.”
Posted Saturday morning, Voght’s now-deleted tweet said, “I wrote about @giselefetterman, and how her husband’s stroke transformed her from a reluctant political spouse to de facto candidate and political star.”
Fetterman is locked in a close race against Oz to replace Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). He leads Oz by 2.4 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average, though his advantage has been steadily eroding.
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Biden’s visit to Pennsylvania comes in the final weeks of a race that could prove crucial to Democrats’ control of the Senate.
