Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has spent much of the past two years antagonizing his own party, is now turning to Republicans for campaign cash.
In recent weeks, Fetterman has sent fundraising appeals through email addresses associated with Republican candidates and committees, including one from “[email protected].” One of the messages declared, “I’m always going to reject Socialism and the Anti-American way of life,” and urged recipients to help Fetterman “stand with America” and “reject the extremes.” The same address has also been used for messages supporting President Trump’s voting restrictions and urging readers to donate to Republican candidates in the midterms.
The emails, reported earlier by The Intercept and also obtained by TIME, are the latest sign of how dramatically Fetterman’s electoral strategy has changed since arriving in the Senate in 2023. The former progressive backed by Bernie Sanders has increasingly built his political identity around opposition to the left, unwavering support for Israel, and a willingness to embrace conservative voters. His campaign is now reaching into the fundraising infrastructure of the party he insists he has no intention of joining, as his support among Democrats has eroded and his fundraising has sharply declined.
The fundraising appeals appeared under several other Republican-linked domains, including Unshakeable Conservatives and Freedom Faction. It remains unclear who owns the lists or the arrangement Fetterman’s campaign has with the groups behind them. Campaigns routinely rent or otherwise obtain access to donor lists as a way of reaching new potential contributors.
Fetterman’s office did not return a request for comment.
Another fundraising email sent this month from the gopsquad handle came with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah listed as the sender. It was focused on Fetterman, and began, “I just got an email from John. He’s basically a Republican now.”
Fetterman has not said whether he will seek a second term in 2028. Over the weekend, during an on-stage interview at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, he said he was raising money with a reelection bid “as the possibility” and suggested he would wait until after the November midterms to decide.
Several Pennsylvania Democrats are already considering a challenge to him in 2028, even as Republicans continue to encourage him to leave the party. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has been critical of Fetterman, says that the latest fundraising effort fit a pattern that was already apparent. “More than a year ago, I called John Fetterman ‘Trump’s favorite Democrat,’” Boyle says, “so it should come as no surprise that he’s now using that label to raise money from Republicans.”
Rep. Chris Deluzio, another Pennsylvania Democrat, says that Fetterman has become a “distraction” from the party’s effort to win the midterms and combat the Trump Administration. “That’s my focus. Anyone who stands in the way of that work will have to answer to the voters soon enough,” Deluzio says.
Fetterman’s political transformation appears to have hampered his fundraising. He raised roughly $76 million in the two years before taking office in 2023, an extraordinary sum for a first-time Senate candidate, powered by an enormous small-dollar fundraising operation and the enthusiasm of progressives who saw the hoodie-wearing, working-class populist as a different kind of Democrat. But since then, the political coalition around him has steadily come apart. Fetterman raised about $7.4 million during his first two years in the Senate and less than $2 million since the beginning of 2025, according to federal campaign finance records. His political action committee has raised only a few hundred thousand dollars since 2023.
Fetterman has hardly hidden the shift. His redesigned campaign website boasts that he “thinks for himself” and tells visitors, “You should too.” He has become a regular presence on Fox News and other conservative programs. In July, he attended a retreat hosted by Rupert Murdoch, appearing on a panel with Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama. He has formed a joint fundraising operation with Senator Dave McCormick, the Republican who represents Pennsylvania alongside him, allowing their campaigns and political committees to raise money together.
Earlier this month, he appeared by video at the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas. Fetterman introduced McCormick in a recorded message, attacked the “extremes of socialism,” and called on Bernie Sanders to “sit a few out” after the Vermont Senator backed left-wing candidates in Democratic primaries. The appearance was jarring for Democrats in part because Sanders had been among the most prominent supporters of Fetterman’s own Senate campaign.
Fetterman, for his part, has repeatedly rejected the suggestion that his political evolution will eventually lead him to joining the GOP. At the Texas Tribune Festival, he argued that Democrats should be a “big-tent” party with room for someone who supports both Israel’s actions in Gaza and holding Iran accountable. “I don’t have a reason to” join the Republican Party, Fetterman said, noting that he still votes with Democrats on most partisan matters. He has also said he has “no path as a Republican.”
Still, Fetterman voted in support of Trump and the Republican Party on 26% of Senate votes during 2025, the highest rate of any Senate Democrat. He has repeatedly sided with Republicans on immigration, government funding, Trump’s nominees and the President’s use of military force. Most recently, he cast the deciding vote against an effort to curb Trump’s use of force in Iran. Pennsylvania Republicans now view Fetterman more favorably than they view McCormick, the actual Republican Senator representing their state, according to a poll conducted last month by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena University. Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvania Democrats viewed Fetterman unfavorably.
Asked in Texas why he would not become an independent, Fetterman’s answer captured the peculiar place he now occupies in American politics. “I’m not a Republican,” he said.
Later in the evening, an audience member asked again why he hadn’t left the Democratic Party. “Because I’m a lifelong Republican,” Fetterman said. Immediately realizing his mistake, he put his hand to his head and joked that he knew the line would get clipped and go viral.
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