When he ran for Senate in 2022, Conor Lamb was thrashed by over 30 points in the Democratic Senate primary. He lost every county in the state as the left rallied behind John Fetterman and against the young lawmaker who was dismissed as a centrist stooge and veritable Joe Manchin clone.
Progressives want you to know they’re sorry about that.
In light of Fetterman’s seeming estrangement from the Democratic Party and his evolution into “Trump’s favorite Democrat,” the left has reconciled with Lamb, wondering if maybe they were a little too tough on the once up-and-coming lawmaker who had shot to national attention by winning a deep red district in a 2018 special election.
The rapprochement has taken place over the past year as Lamb, who holds no elected office, has appeared at more than a dozen town halls and events across the state — some sponsored by local progressive groups — and Fetterman has become increasingly isolated amid questions about his mental and physical health. In May, the statewide progressive organization Indivisible Pennsylvania became the first Democratic group to call for Fetterman’s resignation.
Lamb himself has not undergone any apparent ideological transformation. Instead, he’s simply shown up at event after event at a time when many Pennsylvania liberals don’t think the incumbent they helped elect has done so, and he’s vocally criticized the Trump administration at a time when Fetterman has been more restrained about going after a president loathed by the left.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was among the first to go public with her buyer’s remorse. After Lamb rebuked Fetterman on X a few months ago in response to a post from his former political rival attacking Democrats who voted against a Republican funding bill to keep the government open, Ocasio-Cortezwondered aloud about where she could “submit her Conor Lamb apology form.”
She’s not alone. Some have used the town halls as a chance to apologize to Lamb in person for rejecting him in the primary. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who joined Lamb at one town hall this spring to discuss Social Security, described several attendees who came up to Lamb and said, “I didn’t vote for you in the last primary, and in hindsight, I really wish I had.”
One longtime Democratic operative in the state who was granted anonymity to speak frankly was astonished at the reversal in attitude among some activists in the state. “The idea that we somehow missed the chance at a progressive champion in the Senate in Conor Lamb and elected some right-of-center Democrat like John Fetterman is a fascinating flip flop that’s taking place here in Pennsylvania.”
After all, the operative noted, Lamb had a consistently moderate voting record in Congress while Fetterman was a Bernie Sanders delegate in 2016.
Fetterman has undergone his own transformation. The first-term Democrat has drawn the left’s ire for supporting some Trump nominees and for meeting with the president at Mar-a-Lago at a time when the Democratic base is roiling with disdain for the president. He’s arguably the party’s most stalwart defender of Israel at a moment when the Jewish state has become anathema to many on the far left. At the same time, Fetterman has been almost invisible in his home state and missed a number of votes and committee hearings on Capitol Hill. Further, his office has experienced a staff exodus, with his former chief of staff publicly expressing concern about the senator’s physical and mental health.
A spokesperson for Fetterman did not respond to a request for comment, although he has dismissed the allegations as coming from “anonymous sources and disgruntled staffers.”
Lamb, by traveling the state and holding events even though he’s no longer a member of Congress, has filled a vacuum left by Fetterman, said Mike Mikus, a veteran Democrat strategist in the state. “The activists right now are looking for somebody who will stand up to Trump and John Fetterman has not been doing that,” he said.
Recounting his town hall experiences in a phone interview — he talked to POLITICO while driving to address a Pittsburgh rally — Lamb describes enthusiastic audiences who are egged on by frustration with Fetterman, “in part because they are so disgusted with John and the fact that he campaigned in front of them, but then hasn’t been back there to do the actual job.”
“I can give some people some helpful information and context about these different policy debates and fill in some of the issues for them,” the former three-term congressman and Marine lawyer said.
Matt Beynon, a longtime aide to former Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum and a veteran Republican consultant in the state, noted that Lamb is tapping into the sense that “Fetterman has been MIA and he’s just simply not doing the job.”
“Being a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania means representing 13 million people,” said Beynon. “It means getting to all 67 counties every year, because that’s what every senator, Republican or Democrat, over the last 50 years from Pennsylvania has done.”
Lamb insists his statewide tour isn’t about self-promotion or laying the groundwork for a 2028 Senate bid, though he doesn’t rule anything out. “You know, if an opportunity to run for anything, including the Senate in the future, seems to be there, I’ll definitely look at it,” he said. “But it’s three years away, and to be honest, when I started this, I thought John would maybe adjust and start acting like a better senator, and start speaking up for the people that he used to promise he was going to fight for raising the minimum wage and all sorts of issues.”
There’s real skepticism in Pennsylvania political circles about whether the stolid ex-Marine’s charisma comes anywhere close to matching his ambition. But it hasn’t gone unnoticed that Lamb is drawing bigger crowds for his town halls than he did when he was a Senate candidate.
The question is whether Lamb is simply serving as a temporary vessel for anti-Fetterman sentiment. As Mikus noted, once a primary actually starts in full swing, Democratic voters may become far more focused on ideology. But after their experience with Fetterman, he said, progressives might “be willing to settle for someone who’s a little closer to the center than them, because they want to know what they’re getting.”
With Democratic voters returning to the Resistance mindset that dominated the first Trump term, they are demanding fierce, no-holds-barred opposition to the president and his agenda. They may appreciate Fetterman’s demand for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador earlier this year but they expect him to call CECOT, the prison complex where Abrego Garcia was held, “a gulag,” as Lamb referred to it.
If Lamb did run for Fetterman’s seat, it would mark the second time in two decades that a Pennsylvania congressman lost a primary bid for U.S. Senate and then tried again six years later. Pat Toomey mounted an unsuccessful Senate primary challenge to moderate incumbent Arlen Specter in 2004 but returned six years later to win the seat after scaring Specter into switching parties (Specter then lost his bid for renomination).
Unlike Toomey, Lamb likely wouldn’t have the field to himself against Fetterman in 2028, with a number of ambitious Democrats currently in the state’s congressional delegation including Reps. Brendan Boyle, Chris DeLuzio and Chrissy Houlahan mentioned as potential candidates.
While polls show Fetterman’s popularity with Democratic voters has taken a hit, voters still have a generally favorable view of him, largely because his popularity with Republicans has increased.
In the meantime, Lamb continues to show up at town halls to take questions and to take advantage of his progressive glow up as well. “My wife told me that people are born with different purposes in this life,” he said, “and she thinks that my purpose may be to do town halls, whether I’m in office or not.”
