Who is John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor running for Senate?

John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, has used his unorthodox image and persona to chart an unlikely path from mayor of tiny Braddock to become the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in one of the country’s most crucial races.

Fetterman, 53, has long received national attention for his time as mayor of a small Rust Belt town outside Pittsburgh. He was featured in Rolling Stone and a Levi’s ad campaign, drawing notice partly for his work to revive a struggling steel town, but also for his working-class stylings, with tattoos and a goatee, and his blunt, sometimes gruff demeanor.

His unusual approach, often marked by sarcastic Twitter trolling, swearing in news releases or jokes about Sheetz and WaWa, have underpinned a national following as Fetterman has pitched himself as an antidote to typical, starched politics.

He ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2016. But in his second bid he cruised through the Democratic primary, easily defeating some notable rivals and winning every county in the state, blending liberal policies with populist rhetoric and a vow to compete in the rural, working-class areas that have abandoned Democrats in recent years.

But Fetterman’s romp to the Democratic nomination, and much of his general election campaign, has been shadowed by a stroke he suffered just days before the May 17 primary. Fetterman, whose campaign initially downplayed the severity, later said he nearly died, and his recovery kept him off the campaign trail for months.

By mid-August, he returned to campaigning, slowly building up his schedule. He says he is healthy aside from some problems with auditory processing and occasionally stumbling over his words, and has done some individual interviews with journalists, but his public appearances remain relatively guarded.

Despite his working-class persona, shaped in part by his signature outfit of gym shorts and a hoodie, Fetterman grew up wealthy. His father is an insurance executive who has backed his campaigns and provided personal financial support deep into Fetterman’s 40s. The family’s aid helped Fetterman stay afloat while earning $150 a month as mayor of Braddock. He has said their generosity allowed him to dedicate himself to public service, though Republicans argue it shows his blue-collar image is a facade.

Fetterman was poised to join the family insurance business until a close friend died in a car accident on his way to pick Fetterman up in 1993. He has cited that incident as a turning point.

“If it had been just a few minutes later, I would have been in the car with him,” Fetterman said. “I started to look at the world differently, and I wanted to give back.”

Fetterman joined Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and soon quit his job and moved to Pittsburgh, where he worked for AmeriCorps. He taught GED classes in nearby Braddock, a town of about 2,000. After two of his students were shot and killed, he decided to run for mayor.

He won the three-person contest by one vote and was reelected twice, serving as mayor for 13 years. He still lives in Braddock, in a converted car dealership with his wife, Gisele, and their three children.

Fetterman butted heads with some local elected officials who thought he received too much credit for progress in the majority-Black city.

In 2016, Fetterman ran for Senate. Little-known and underfunded, he finished third in the Democratic primary.

He ran for lieutenant governor in 2018 and won. He’s used the job, which comes with limited power, to advocate for marijuana legalization and criminal justice reform. He chairs the state Board of Pardons and has ushered the panel through more clemency hearings than it’s heard since the 1970s.

Fetterman started his tenure as lieutenant governor with a marijuana listening tour, and flew a flag with a marijuana leaf from the balcony of his office at the state Capitol.

Fetterman often rails against economic inequality, what he calls the low minimum wage, and poor housing and health care systems. He has called for raising the minimum wage, as well as ending the Senate filibuster, the rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority for most significant legislation. He’s shifted on certain issues including fracking, which he now largely supports.

As chair of the Board of Pardons, which oversees clemency and pardon applications, Fetterman helped increase the number of applications coming into the office by waiving fees and making it easier to apply. Under his tenure, applications increased 104%, and the number of pardon requests granted increased by 64%. About 40 people who were serving life sentences have had their terms commuted, a huge increase from prior administrations.

Fetterman’s campaign touts more than 330,000 individual donors, often conributing in small amounts, as evidence of broad, statewide grassroots support.

While relatively few elected Democrats in Pennsylvania endorsed Fetterman during the primary — a product, he says, of his refusal to engage in the usual political niceties — the national party has invested heavily in his success in the general election.

One long-ago incident has at times overshadowed his campaign.

In 2013, Fetterman pursued a man and pulled a shotgun on him because he believed the man, who turned out to be a Black jogger, had been involved in a shooting. Fetterman has long defended his actions, saying he heard gunfire nearby and made a split-second decision to act, as Braddock’s then-mayor and chief law enforcement officer, in what he thought was an “active shooter situation.”

» READ MORE: Everything to know about the 2013 John Fetterman jogger incident

An officer who responded to reports of gunfire searched the man, Christopher Miyares, and found he was unarmed, according to a 2013 police report.

Miyares disputed some of Fetterman’s account when asked by The Inquirer in April 2021.

The incident did little to slow Fetterman in the Democratic primary, but Republicans are now raising the issue themselves, including in TV ads.