John Fetterman campaigned on ending the filibuster. Here’s why he changed his mind.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, doubling down on a position that has already added to Democrats’ frustrations with him in recent months, offered a more detailed explanation this week for his change of heart about eliminating the Senate filibuster.

The Pennsylvania Democrat wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post that he was “horribly wrong” to support ending the practice that requires bills to win 60 votes rather than a 51-vote majority.

The rule frequently allows members of the minority party to block policies that fail to win bipartisan support, including some of each party’s top priorities — like abortion protections when Democrats have been in control, or the voting restrictions that Republicans are now attempting to pass at President Donald Trump’s urging.

Fetterman was among many Democrats in recent years to campaign on eliminating the filibuster in order to secure those bigger wins. During his 2022 campaign, he specifically referred to passing abortion protections established under Roe v. Wade as a reason for that position after the longstanding law was struck down by the Supreme Court that year.

“I became one of the first candidates in the country to call for abolishing the filibuster for a reason: it stands in the way of getting things done for [Pennsylvanians],” his active campaign website still read on Tuesday, nearly four years after he won.

But as he has more frequently sides with Republicans and criticizes his fellow Democrats, Fetterman has said repeatedly this year that he was “wrong.”

“We were very wrong about that to nuke the filibuster, and we should really humble ourselves,” he said on Fox News in February. In that interview and others, he has needled Democrats who opposed the filibuster but now, he’s said, express a “love” for it as they find themselves in the minority and try to reject Republican policies.

In The Washington Post this week, Fetterman wrote Americans who are “horrified” at the policies coming out of the Republican-led Congress and Trump’s administration would be alarmed if the filibuster had been eliminated and every proposal could become law with a simple majority.

“We’d have the Save America Act by now, which I do not support,” Fetterman wrote. “We could have extreme policies such as nationwide abortion restrictions, backpedaling on LGBT rights, repeal of birthright citizenship and limited voting rights across the country. With a government trifecta firmly in place, many provisions of Project 2025 would have easily been enacted. Republicans could fundamentally change the entire government and country with a simple majority vote.”

Fetterman’s reference to the Save America Act comes as Trump has pressured Senate Republican leaders to eliminate the filibuster in order to pass the bill, which would enact sweeping election reforms. It would require individuals to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, to show photo ID at the polls and it would scale back mail voting.

Opponents of the bill say it would make registering and voting more difficult for millions of people. And Fetterman has opposed the bill because of the changes to mail voting, though he has changed his former position to support photo ID.

The bill has failed to receive support from 60 senators, and Trump has demanded that Republicans bypass the filibuster to force it through with only GOP support. U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.), a Trump ally, has said such a scenario is “very tempting” even though he campaigned against ending the filibuster in 2024.

“It’s a path to get more things done,” McCormick said during a telephone town hall with constituents last week.

Fetterman, in his op-ed, called the filibuster “a critical line of defense that prevents President Donald Trump from having a fill-in-the-blank government with new laws, deregulation or procedures of its choosing.”

He wrote that “history has vindicated” former U.S. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Arizona) and Joe Manchin (D., W.V.) for voting with Republicans to block reforming the filibuster when Democrats were in control in 2022.

Fetterman could potentially play a similar role after the midterm elections this fall if Democrats win control of the Senate with a slim, potentially one-vote majority. Some observers have said Fetterman could also leave his party, becoming a Republican or — as Sinema and Manchin did after serving as Democrats — become an independent.

“Some of my colleagues, including myself, have been frustrated when engaging with the minority,” Fetterman wrote. “But that process isn’t a bug — it’s one of the best features of the Senate. We have a great democracy that is imperfect, but it requires working together.”

As Fetterman works more often with Republicans, though, Democrats have become more frustrated with him and vowed to mount a challenge if he seeks a second term in 2028.

Former U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb — one of the Democrats who has not ruled out another campaign after losing to Fetterman in the 2022 primary — has said the senator’s switch on the filibuster “is probably the worst Fetterman story yet” that most people don’t realize.

In a social media video in early June, Lamb said eliminating the filibuster was essential for Democrats to “put Roe v. Wade back into law” and to pass legislation on voting rights, gun control and raising the minimum wage if they regain control of the Senate.

“When we ran against each other, he promised he would fight for women on this issue and get rid of the filibuster,” Lamb said. “And of course, like so many things, he’s changed his mind.”