Sen. John Fetterman makes surprise appearance at GOP midterm convention
US Senator John Fetterman, Democrat from Pennsylvania, is displayed on a screen as he delivers a video message during the Republican National Midterm Convention at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas on Sept. 9, 2026. Kent Nishimura | AFP | Getty Images Democratic Sen. John Fetterman on Wednesday night made a surprise appearance at the Republican midterm convention, an astonishing move that is bound to invite even more scrutiny about his party loyalty. “Yes, I’m a Democrat,” Fetterman, the first-term senator from Pennsylvania, said in a video played on the first night of the event nicknamed “Trumpapalooza” for its focus on President Donald Trump. “Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I’m a common sense Democrat,” Fetterman said in the video recorded outside U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock, Pennsylvania. “I’m always going to stand with America. I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life,” he said. Fetterman’s video introduced Pennsylvania’s other U.S. senator, Republican Dave McCormick, by praising him as “the kind …
