Democrats need a net gain of four U.S. Senate seats in November to flip control of the chamber. This would deny Donald Trump an easy path to confirmation of his executive branch and judicial nominees during the last two years of his presidency. It would also eliminate the governing trifecta that has allowed Republicans to repeatedly deploy the budget-reconciliation process, skirting the Senate filibuster that otherwise would protect minority-party influence over legislation. So it’s a really big deal.

But a Democratic Senate flip might come with an asterisk: It’s a big, bald-headed, hoodie-wearing asterisk named John Fetterman. To call the freshman senator from Pennsylvania “erratic” is a major understatement. But he’s becoming increasingly predictable as an ally of the Trump administration, especially on hot-button questions of war and peace.

The long and controversial saga of his recovery from the 2022 stroke that nearly derailed his Senate campaign is one thing; as New York’s Ben Terris reported earlier this year, there are widely varying accounts of how he’s doing from family, friends, and staff. But his transition from being a recognizable (if quirky) Bernie-bro progressive to his present status as every Republican’s favorite Democrat has been fast and furious. He made a point of defecting from his party colleagues on a number of early, high-profile Trump Cabinet confirmation votes (supporting half of them, including, uniquely, Pam Bondi for attorney general). He voted with Trump administration initiatives more than any other Senate Democrat in 2025 (albeit just over one-fourth of the time).

But perhaps just as important, he began to regularly criticize his party using GOP-style rhetoric about alleged Democratic extremism, intolerance, and irrational hostility to Trump.........

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