Fetterman defeats Oz to win Pa.'s key Senate race, flip GOP-held seat to Democrats

Democrat John Fetterman earned a hard-fought win over Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s pivotal U.S. Senate race.

Oz called Fetterman early Wednesday morning to concede the race, according to the Fetterman campaign.

Fetterman had collected about 51% of the votes counted compared with 47% for Oz, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.

The unofficial tallies show a total of more than 1.1 million mail-in votes were cast in the race and more than 4 million votes were cast at polling places across the state.

“We launched this campaign almost two years ago, and we had our slogan, ‘every county, every vote.’ And that is exactly what happened … That is why tonight I will be the next U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania,” Fetterman told a raucous crowd of supporters who remained at Stage AE on Pittsburgh’s North Shore when the Braddock Democrat took the stage around 1:20 a.m.

Data from the Department of State show the vast majority of this year’s requests for absentee and mail ballots — roughly 70% — came from registered Democrats, according to Tribune-Review news partner Spotlight PA.

Allegheny County and other areas across the state reported the unofficial results of the mail-in voting soon after polls closed and they skewed heavily toward Fetterman. As the night wore on and results from in-person voting at polling places came in, Fetterman’s lead narrowed.

Hundreds of Fetterman supporters gathered at Stage AE to watch the results come in. Oz held his Election Night gathering in Bucks County in suburban Philadelphia.

Late Tuesday, Oz was predicting he would come out on top in the race.

“When all the ballots are counted, we believe we will win this race. We have been closing the gap all night, and we have a lot more ballots to go,” Oz told his supporters around 11:30 p.m., according to PennLive.com.

However, as more votes were tallied from Democratic strongholds in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Fetterman’s margin has grown and he is up by more than three points as of late Wednesday morning.

By early Wednesday, news organizations including The Associated Press, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN and The New York Times had all projected Fetterman as the winner.

Just before 1 a.m., Fetterman took to Twitter to declare victory.

”It’s official. I will be the next U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania,” Fetterman wrote. “We bet on the people of Pennsylvania — and you didn’t let us down. And I won’t let you down. Thank you.”

In his remarks to the supporters at Stage AE, Fetterman said he never expected to turn conservative counties from red to blue — but he said he got enough votes in those places to win a close race.

According to unofficial vote tallies, Fetterman improved on President Joe Biden’s 2020 margins in many conservative counties, as well as outperforming him in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.

Compared to Pennsylvania’s last closely contested Senate race in 2016, Fetterman improved on the Democrats’ showing in Allegheny County — possibly boosted, at least in part, by his residency in the county. In 2016, Democrat Katie McGinty received about 55% of the vote in Allegheny County, but lost the statewide race to now-outgoing U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley. With virtually all votes counted in Allegheny County, Fetterman had received 63%.

“This campaign is about fighting for anyone who has got knocked down and got back up,” said Fetterman, who referenced the stroke he suffered in May that became a focal point of the race. “We bet on the people of Pennsylvania, and you didn’t let us down.”