John Fetterman’s Right-Wing Fundraising Deals
· The Atlantic
A Republican fundraising consultant alerted her colleagues this month in a private message about a hot new business opportunity from an unlikely source: Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat. “I thought you would be interested in this high performing Fetterman copy,” wrote Leah Mergener, an account associate at the GOP-aligned firm Blitz Digital Group. “It has been doing crazy numbers for us.”
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The fundraising appeal was signed by Fetterman and included links to donate to his campaign fund. But the language was written to attract donors sympathetic to President Trump, and the money flowed through a payment-processing firm, Anedot, that is used by Republicans. “I’m always going to reject Socialism and the anti-American way of life,” read its subject line, before warning that socialists were “hijacking the Democratic party.”
Through the opportunity that Mergener proposed, conservative groups that sent the Fetterman appeal to their lists of donors would receive most of the money raised. “We are offering it a 75% split,” Mergener wrote in the message that we obtained. A Republican consultant explained to us that this means that 75 percent of the first donation each recipient made would be kicked back as a commission to the organization that sent the appeal; Fetterman would profit largely by gaining the contact information of new donors, allowing him to build a fundraising list he could use for a future campaign. Blitz Digital Group, which is a Virginia-based affiliate of the direct-mail firm HSP Direct, did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the Fetterman campaign.
Fetterman’s message caught the attention of Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a Republican, who forwarded the note to his own fundraising list, then explicitly teased the idea of Fetterman switching parties if conservatives signed a petition. “I just got an email from John. He’s basically a Republican now,” Lee wrote in a solicitation that we obtained. “I need your help to draft him.” The link in Lee’s message leads to a petition, and an opportunity to give money to Lee’s own federal fundraising account. Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Just four years ago, Fetterman overcame a mid-campaign stroke to win his Senate seat as a new kind of left-leaning populist with a platform that included support for a $15 federal minimum wage and single-payer health care. He was helped by an endorsement from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who identifies as a democratic socialist. But as the 2026 midterm elections approach, Fetterman has been vocal about feeling rejected by his party and is openly talking about leaving it over differences on support for Israel and the Iran war. His polling among Democrats in his state has collapsed, and he is likely to face multiple primary challengers if he chooses to run for reelection in 2028. Fetterman was noncommittal when asked during the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday whether he would continue to caucus with Democrats.
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In June, his longtime relationship with a Democratic-aligned digital fundraising firm, MissionWired, ended. Shortly afterward, he forged a joint fundraising committee with Pennsylvania’s other senator, Dave McCormick, a Republican. In July, Fetterman joined a group of Republican politicians for a retreat with Fox News executives at Rupert Murdoch’s ranch in Montana. On September 9, he spoke in a recorded address at Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas, delivering a message about rejecting socialism that would feature in his fundraising solicitation later that month. During that address, he introduced McCormick, whose campaign Fetterman had aggressively opposed in 2024. At the time, he called McCormick a “rich dude” trying to buy his way into the Senate, but the two have since cultivated a close relationship. Fetterman, who has few friends in the Democratic caucus, has also developed a friendship with Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama; the two have gathered for dinners, joint interviews, and family group texts.
Days after speaking at the midterm convention, Fetterman’s political operation began working with a Republican-aligned firm to start arranging emails and text messages to acquire new conservative donors, which were first reported by The Intercept. Fetterman’s missives were circulated by more than a dozen political operations with domain names such as America1stWarRoom.com, ConstitutionPatriots.com, RedMajorities.com, TheDesantisDaily.com, and TrumpTruths.org, according to records collected by the Archive of Political Emails. The new effort deepens the mystery around his political intentions and is a cause for concern for Democratic leaders. Fetterman’s refusal to limit himself to the Democratic ecosystem could matter a great deal next year, especially if he finds himself as the decisive swing vote and holds the power to decide which party will control the Senate.
Democratic donors showered Fetterman with cash when he ran in 2022, allowing him to raise more than $37 million in small donations—nearly five times more than the $7.7 million raised in smaller donations by Mehmet Oz, his Republican opponent, according to federal records. But times have changed. Only 12 percent of Democrats now view Fetterman favorably, according to a recent New York Times survey of likely voters in Pennsylvania. That’s compared with 75 percent of Republicans in the state who view him favorably. Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed considered him more of a Republican than a Democrat. He currently has about $2 million in his campaign account, according to the most recent federal filing.
Fetterman has attributed this rejection by Democrats to his outspoken support for Israel and the war against Iran, along with his decision to vote to fund parts of the government earlier this year, breaking with his Democratic colleagues who were protesting Trump’s immigration policies. He has told reporters that he is mystified that Democrats would turn on a lawmaker who votes with the party about 90 percent of the time. “I can’t explain it. I mean, I haven’t changed my views,” he said at the Texas Tribune Festival. He also maintains that he has no interest in becoming a Republican, arguing that the party would not accept him because of his positions on abortion rights and other liberal issues. He has seen how Republicans treat senators such as John Cornyn of Texas, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina when they disagree with party orthodoxy. “I’m not going to be a Republican!” he shouted recently, as he waited for an elevator on Capitol Hill, fending off questions from reporters. “Why can’t you guys just wait ’til the midterm, you know? And if I turn a Republican and then—I’ll be a liar, then?”
Democrats we spoke with in Pennsylvania told us that Fetterman is unlikely to win a Democratic primary for reelection in 2028. That would leave him with three options: retirement, becoming a Republican, or running as an independent, which would force a three-way race unless one of the major parties chooses not to field a candidate. “His career as a Democrat is over. We didn’t push him away. He threw it away,” Conor Lamb, a former representative who ran against Fetterman in the 2022 Democratic primary, told us. “He is the one that made a decision to do what Trump wanted instead of what Democrats wanted.”
Lamb is one of several Democrats considering a campaign for Fetterman’s seat in 2028. Representative Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, another potential Democratic candidate, told us that Fetterman has become a distraction as the party tries to win midterm races. “Anyone who stands in the way of that work will have to answer to the voters soon enough,” he said.
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But if Fetterman decided to switch teams sooner, that could help Republicans keep control of the Senate after the midterms. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that he has had conversations with Fetterman about the challenges he faces in the Democratic caucus. “If he ever comes to the conclusion that he’s ready to move, we would certainly welcome it,” he said. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated that Democrats “very much like him and respect him” and that the party is big enough to accommodate his views. The two had dinner in August.
One plugged-in Democratic operative described the current dynamic to us like this: “Dems are bitter and resentful, and these guys are sitting there with open arms.”
As recently as June, Fetterman sounded like an entirely different politician in his fundraising appeals. He told donors about needing four seats to flip the Senate. There were messages backing Rob Sand in Iowa, Jon Ossoff in Georgia, and James Talarico in Texas. There was an email warning about how “dangerous” Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s policies were, and how “the GOP is coming after Social Security.” In one appeal on June 30, he wrote: “At a time like this, it’s crucial we hit our goals and keep up the pressure on Trump and extremist Republicans.” That is the last email from Fetterman captured by the Archive of Political Emails for several months. Then, this month, messages from Fetterman shifted to warn about socialism.
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Fetterman’s previous fundraising firm, MissionWired, was founded by Anne Lewis, a former deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and it works with Democratic Senate candidates such as Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Adam Hamilton in Kansas. “MissionWired ended its engagement with Senator Fetterman’s campaign in June 2026,” Kate Kline, the firm’s CEO, told us in a statement. “We had no involvement in a revenue-sharing plan with Republican entities, and if we had become aware, we would have objected to the strategy and refused the work.”
Blitz Digital Group, by contrast, has been working with Republicans whom Fetterman previously opposed. The group has received fees this cycle from the National Republican Senatorial Committee and from Mike Collins, a Republican Senate candidate in Georgia. The firm describes itself as a specialist in “building online donor prospecting programs for conservative non-profits, candidates, PAC’s and associations.” The firm’s parent company, HSP Direct, describes itself as “a premier conservative direct mail fundraising agency,” and its clients include Jon Husted, the Republican senator from Ohio who is running this cycle against Brown.
One Republican digital consultant told us, after requesting anonymity to discuss the arrangements, that although the relationships Fetterman is building are unusual, fundraising-list brokers typically push the language that performs the best, and that there is clear appeal for a Democrat who is willing to echo Republican talking points about socialism. “Assuming he believes all the things he says,” the consultant said about Fetterman, “it is just a natural place to go, because he agrees with Republicans on some things.”