Fettermans 93% Problem: Democrats Are Eating Their Own — and the Math Doesnt Add Up

The Numbers Democrats Wont Look At

Here is what the Fetterman outrage conveniently ignores. Before his Senate career, Conor Lamb represented Pennsylvanias 17th congressional district and voted with the Democratic Party 68% of the time — barely more than half the party agenda. Moderate, careful, bipartisan. He was never the target of primary challenges or Carville podcast ridicule. He was celebrated as a blueprint for winning tough districts [2].

Fetterman votes with Democrats 93% of the time. Hes backed the PRO Act, supported healthcare expansions, and cast votes progressives claimed to care deeply about. His 7% dissent rate would be considered saintly in the U.S. Senate of literally any other era.

So whats the actual problem? Its not the votes. Its the vibe. Fetterman wears shorts. He calls out his own party. He said — correctly, if impolitely — that Democrats created mass chaos during the DHS shutdown and punished TSA workers making $50,000 a year [1]. Theres a certain strain of political commentary that found this so heretical it demanded his ouster. Never mind that the criticism was accurate. Never mind that the shutdown lasted 41 days and left federal workers without paychecks while Congress argued about immigration enforcement. Never mind that real people suffered while the party held the line on a procedural standoff most Americans couldnt explain at gunpoint.

What a Purity Test Actually Costs

Lets talk about Pennsylvania for a second. Its one of eight states that will decide every Senate majority for the next decade. Bob Casey — the previous occupant of this seat — barely won in 2018 and lost narrowly in 2024. Democrats have a complicated record there. The idea that the path forward involves primarying a senator with a 93% loyalty record and replacing him with a candidate who can win a primary but might lose the general is — lets be generous — strategically questionable [1].

Brendan Boyle, a fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, went on the record calling for Fettermans ouster. Let that sink in. A Democratic House member, in a year when the party is trying to win back the Senate, is publicly calling for the removal of the only Democrat in Pennsylvanias Senate delegation — not because of his votes, but because of his Twitter personality and his willingness to say something critical about Democratic strategy [3].

This is what purity tests actually cost. Not just individual senators — though that too. They cost the party the intellectual flexibility to acknowledge when something isnt working. They turn every honest internal critique into a loyalty crisis. And they guarantee that the only Democrats left standing are the ones who are very good at never saying anything real.

The Fetterman Irony

Heres the part that should give any honest progressive pause. The attacks on Fetterman largely center on his criticism of Democrats during the DHS shutdown. He said unpaid TSA workers shouldnt be collateral damage in a political standoff. This is a position that would have been considered standard progressive economics as recently as 2018 — the idea that working-class workers shouldnt bear the cost of elite political disputes.

Instead, it was treated as ideological betrayal. Because the shutdown was being weaponized by the other side, anything that complicated the clean partisan narrative was suspect. Fetterman provided the deciding vote to confirm Markwayne Mullin as DHS Secretary — a genuinely defensible criticism. But the response has been so out of proportion that it has engulfed every aspect of his tenure [2].

All weve done is weve punished TSA workers. Thats it.

— Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), on the DHS shutdown

What Democrats Could Learn Instead

The irony is that Fettermans critics are proving his point. He has argued — sometimes clumsily, sometimes effectively — that Democrats have a messaging problem. That the party conflates its core values with its tactical decisions and treats any questioning of tactics as a betrayal of values. And then, on cue, a chorus of progressive voices demonstrated exactly that confusion by going after a senator not for what he voted for but for how he talked about the people he voted with [3].

Theres a version of the Democratic Party that can hold someone like Fetterman accountable for the Mullin vote — where that criticism is specific, substantive, and proportional — while also recognizing that a senator with a 93% party loyalty record is an asset, not an enemy. That party wins elections. Thats a party that can tolerate internal disagreement without treating every dissenter as a spy.

The version of the party that wants Fetterman gone, that turns a real criticism of one vote into a full excommunication, that prefers solidarity over honesty — that party has a different record. Ask the voters of Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania how the purity-first approach played in the last three election cycles [1].

• Fettermans party loyalty score: 93%
• Conor Lambs party loyalty score (lauded as a model for swing-district Dems): 68%
• Fettermans approval among Democrats in 2023: +68
• Fettermans approval among Democrats in early 2026: -40
• Days of the DHS shutdown during which TSA workers went unpaid: 41

A Final Thought

Democrats are in a tough spot heading into the 2026 midterms. They need to win in states that arent deep blue. They need candidates who can win arguments at kitchen tables, not just in Twitter threads. And they need to be honest — sometimes brutally honest — about when their tactics arent working.

John Fetterman, whatever his flaws, is one of the few Democrats in the Senate who will actually say something uncomfortable out loud. You can disagree with him. You can criticize specific votes. You can make the case that the Mullin confirmation was wrong. But if the punishment for honesty is primary challenges and Carville mockery, Democrats should ask themselves who theyre actually building a coalition for [2].

The arc of the moral universe is long. But it doesnt bend automatically. It bends when people are willing to do the uncomfortable work of telling the truth about their own side — and then actually winning enough elections to do something about it. Primarying Fetterman isnt that. Its something closer to the opposite.