The latter has become a focal point — and a source of friction — for both campaigns in the final weeks of a race that is seen as central to determining which party controls the Senate next year. It was a factor in the format of Tuesday’s debate, where Fetterman will be using a closed captioning system to accommodate for what he and his doctor have said are symptoms of an auditory processing disorder.
Tuesday’s debate will be a new test for Fetterman, who has eased his way back into a busier campaign schedule after spending much of the summer recovering off the trail. The lieutenant governor has spoken at rallies and done media interviews, appearing in more controlled settings. He has not been at a live event with his opponent, where on Tuesday, he faces the prospect of hostilities and difficult questions.
Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, has sought to demonstrate his fitness for office, explaining that while he sometimes stumbles over his words, he is up to the job of being a U.S. senator — a position his doctors have underscored in two letters released publicly since his stroke. He has tried to make his recovery a lesson in empathy for people with serious health conditions.
According to ABC27, the local TV station hosting the debate, real-time captions will transcribe everything the moderators and Oz say, but they will not transcribe Fetterman’s words. ABC27 reporter Dennis Owens, who will be one of the moderators, aired a segment that showed two large TV screens that will hang over the moderators. The screens will features text of what’s being said in real time. Oz and Fetterman will be standing on a stage at the debate behind lecterns.
The candidates will have 60 seconds to answer questions, 30 seconds for rebuttals and 15 seconds for any clarification, according to a person familiar with the debate rules who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share the details. The candidates are allowed to have with them one 8 x 10 notebook, a black ballpoint pen and water. If a candidate is attacked, the moderator will decide whether to allow him the chance to respond.
Fetterman’s health has been a point of contention in the campaign. He did not initially disclose complete information about his medical history to the public when his campaign revealed he’d had a stroke days before the Democratic primary. Oz has criticized him for not being more transparent and questioned his ability to serve in Congress.
In a memo released Monday, the Fetterman campaign sought to play down his abilities as a debater. “John did not get where he is by winning debates or being a polished speaker. He got here because he truly connects with Pennsylvanians,” senior campaign officials Rebecca Katz and Brendan McPhillips wrote.
Oz’s campaign sought to frame the debate as an arena for airing disagreements over policy positions. “John Fetterman is finally going to have to answer for his radical policies,” said Oz campaign communications director Brittany Yanick. The Oz campaign has hammered Fetterman as soft on crime, highlighting his time advocating for prisoners’ paroles as head of the Board of Pardons, among other things.
An Oz campaign billboard greets people entering the town of Braddock, where Fetterman lives, with a comparison of Fetterman to toilet paper and a puppy because they too are soft.
Larry Ceisler, a Democratic public affairs executive in Philadelphia who has prepped candidates for debates, said Fetterman’s “biggest challenge and biggest opportunity will be his opening statement and what he says from the first word, because he has to set the stage for what people are going to see and people are going to hear.”
Ceisler added, “He’s going to have to create an environment for the viewer around empathy. Don’t listen to how I’m saying it, but to the essence of what I’m saying.”
The debate comes amid polls showing a tightening race, with Fetterman leading but by a smaller margin than he had over the summer, facing a steady stream of attacks from Oz and his allies. Democrats view Pennsylvania as their best chance to flip a seat; it is now held by Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R), who is retiring.
The two candidates not only have different policy platforms but starkly contrasting personas that the debate could accentuate. Fetterman is a 6-foot-8, tattooed, goateed man who rarely wears a suit and tie. Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, who for years hosted “The Dr. Oz Show,” almost always looks TV-ready, with coifed hair and suits that appear tailored to fit.
Both candidates have spent much of the campaign personally attacking each other. Fetterman has used viral social media memes and videos to ridicule Oz as an out-of-touch, wealthy celebrity who made a living promoting dubious medical supplements on his television show.
Most of Fetterman’s campaign speeches are punchlines about Oz, though he does mention some policy commitments, from trying to codify federal abortion protections to raising the minimum wage to abolishing the filibuster.
Right after Fetterman’s May stroke, the Oz campaign kept a low profile, but once the Democrat began easing back into campaigning, the Republicans unleashed a torrent of attacks accusing Fetterman of not saying enough about his condition and for having had financial support from his parents into adulthood.
Chris Borick, a political science professor who heads up polling at Muhlenberg College, said people will be watching for how Fetterman performs overall, but that they also will want to hear how he responds to some of Oz’s attacks on Fetterman over crime.
“I want to see how [Fetterman is] going to craft his messages on that topic and how he can frame a response that might help him stem a little bit of the tide that’s been moving against him in the race,” Borick said.
Oz, said Borick, will need a convincing answer to questions about his ties to Pennsylvania after being a long time resident of New Jersey — a point that Fetterman has hammered him on as reason Oz shouldn’t represent the state.
Fetterman’s campaign has flown a banner reading, “Hey Dr. Oz, Welcome Home to N.J.” over the Jersey shore — a popular summer destination for people who live in and around Philadelphia. At the bridge crossing from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, the Fetterman campaign put up a billboard with a similar message.
