The Daily Populous Friday January 16th, 2026 evening edition
Authored by nbcnews.com and submitted by Deedogg11

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., isn’t up for re-election until 2028, but that isn’t stopping his onetime progressive allies from accelerating their effort to challenge him in a primary.

On Friday, the Working Families Party launched a new website, PrimaryFetterman.com, that will serve as a hub for its effort to unseat the senator. It features pages dedicated to opposition research on him, volunteer recruitment and even a link to request donation refunds from his campaign — which the party said it will promote via digital ads.

The new website comes after the progressive group, which supported Fetterman’s 2022 run for Senate, launched its initiative to unseat him in November. That effort, the Working Families Party said, generated more than 425 sign-ups from potential candidates who want to run against him, volunteers who want to work on an effort to unseat him or donors who are interested in funding a primary campaign against him.

As Fetterman has made overtures to the right and broken with many in his party on the recent government shutdown and major foreign policy issues, he has seen longtime staff and supporters abandon him — even as he largely still votes with his party. A number of Pennsylvania Democrats across the ideological spectrum are believed to be interested in taking on Fetterman in 2028.

“While Sen. John Fetterman is supporting Trump’s use of American tax dollars to ‘run’ Venezuela or buy Greenland, 500,000 Pennsylvanians are about to see their health care premiums rise because of the Republican budget bill he supported,” said Nick Gavio, mid-Atlantic communications director for the Working Families Party and a former Fetterman staffer. “People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again. We need new leadership.”

Fetterman's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

MiracleMan1989 on January 16th, 2026 at 13:28 UTC »

Imagine if by some miracle Democrats manage to take back the senate and this asshole switches parties. I can see it. He's such a phony.

Auerbach1991 on January 16th, 2026 at 13:16 UTC »

There needs to be a mechanism in place where if a candidate runs on a party platform, wins, and then changes their entire plan to be essentially the other political party in everything but name, they can be REMOVED from office for Fraud and lying to voters.

Ever notice this is increasingly a one way direction? You almost never hear of a Republican running and changing to a Democrat. Yes there have been cases over the last decade or so. But increasingly nearly 100% of the time in recent years, it’s someone pretending to be a Democrat when they are really a conservative Republican in disguise.

To be clear, I’m talking about more when candidates win as a Democrat, and then announce at a conference after they are changing to the Republican Party. That shit needs to be stopped.

thrawtes on January 16th, 2026 at 12:17 UTC »

Dude isn't up for re-election until 2028 and hasn't even announced he intends to run.

Yeah, some good candidates should prepare to run in the primary, but there's no guarantee they'll even be up against him.