Pennsylvania’s Working Families Party pledges to support a primary challenger against Sen. John Fetterman

Pennsylvania’s Working Families Party is recruiting candidates to run against Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator, John Fetterman.

Fetterman has not announced whether he will run for reelection in 2028, but the progressive party put out a public declaration Tuesday pledging to endorse — and, if necessary, recruit and train — a challenger.

The announcement, first reported by The Inquirer, is a remarkable step for the left-leaning organization to take more than two years before an election and speaks to the degree of frustration with Fetterman among progressives.

“At a time when Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to make life harder for working people, we need real leaders in the Senate who are willing to fight for the working class,” Shoshanna Israel, Mid-Atlantic political director for the Working Families Party, said in a statement.

“Senator Fetterman has sold us out, and that’s why the Pennsylvania Working Families Party is committed to recruiting and supporting a primary challenge to him in 2028.”

Fetterman did not immediately return a request for comment about the Working Families Party’s announcement.

The Working Families Party is a progressive, grassroots political party that is independent from the Democratic Party, but it often endorses and supports Democratic candidates.

Israel noted in her statement that Fetterman voted last week in support of the Republican plan to end the government shutdown — along with seven other Senate Democratic caucus members who crossed the aisle.

Democratic lawmakers in the House, including several from Pennsylvania’s delegation, railed against the decision as caving to the GOP and President Donald Trump without any substantive wins on healthcare, rendering a 35-day shutdown pointless.

Though he supports extending federal healthcare subsidies, Fetterman has long said he is against government shutdowns as a negotiating tactic and will always vote to get federal coffers flowing and federal employees paid.

“I’m sorry to our military, SNAP recipients, gov workers, and Capitol Police who haven’t been paid in weeks,” Fetterman said in a post on X after the vote. “It should’ve never come to this. This was a failure.”

Already one of the most well-known and scrutinized senators in Washington, Fetterman was back in the spotlight this week as he returns to work following a hospitalization after a fall near his home in Braddock. His staff said he suffered a “ventricular fibrillation flare-up” and hit his face, sustaining “minor injuries.”

Ventricular fibrillation is the most severe form of arrhythmia — an abnormal heart rhythm — and the most common cause of sudden cardiac death.

It’s the latest in a string of serious health incidents that have marked the Democratic senator’s time in the public eye. The fall comes three years after he recovered from a near-fatal stroke just days before he won the 2022 Senate primary, which was caused by a blood clot that had blocked a major artery in his brain.

He spent Thursday and Friday in the hospital and was released Saturday, saying he was feeling good and grateful for his care with plans to be back in the Senate this week.

Israel said in addition to the online portal, the party will hold a number of recruitment events across Pennsylvania in the coming months to train candidates and campaign staff on the basics of running for office and managing a campaign with hopes of finding quality candidates for a variety of races ahead of 2028.

The party is also pledging a robust ground game and fundraising for a potential challenger it supports.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Working Families Party has opposed Fetterman. In the 2022 Democratic Senate primary, WFP endorsed State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D., Philadelphia) over Fetterman, who was lieutenant governor at the time.

The Working Families Party has grown its influence in the region since then. In 2023, WFP became the minority party on Philadelphia’s City Council, defeating Republicans in seats the party had held for over 70 years by electing Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke.

Fetterman has been promoting his book, Unfettered, recounting his stroke during the 2022 Senate run, subsequent struggles with depression, and adjustment to life in the U.S. Senate.

The book makes no mention of a reelection bid but laments the ugly politics he experienced in both the Democratic primary and his general election race against Mehmet Oz.

Fetterman said in the book that Oz’s attacks during his rehabilitation from his stroke became so mentally crushing he felt he should have quit the race.

And he grapples with criticism he faced during the primary surrounding a 2013 incident in which he wielded a shotgun and apprehended a Black jogger he suspected of a shooting. Fetterman calls the backlash an early trigger of his depression.

Fetterman has said he will remain a Democrat even as Republicans have lauded his independent streak and willingness to work with the GOP.

Earlier this year, Fetterman was the first Senate Democrat to support the Laken Riley Act, a Republican immigration bill that requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and take into custody individuals who have been charged with theft-related offenses, even without a conviction. Critics of the law say it severely cracks down on due process for immigrants.

Fetterman was the sole Senate Democrat to vote to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was one of Trump’s attorneys when he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

And he has been the Senate’s most outspoken defender of Israel during its war in Gaza, sponsoring a resolution with Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) against antisemitism and appearing for the first time since his fall at an event hosted by the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington on Monday.

He also received recognition from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called him the country’s “best friend” and gifted him a silver pager inspired by Israel’s attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon that exploded pagers.

“He has repeatedly shown disregard for the rights of Palestinians,” the Working Families Party release said. “Refusing to support a two-state solution and breaking with the rest of the Democratic caucus on Israel’s illegal annexation of the West Bank.”

Staff writer Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.