Midterm elections are approaching like an asteroid hurtling towards the Earth. One of the key senate races under a magnifying glass is in the swing state of Pennsylvania where democrat John Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor, is facing off against TV’s Dr. Mehmet Oz. While Fetterman had enjoyed an ample lead for most of the race, the two are now impossibly at neck-and-neck in the days leading up to Election Day.
Apparently, no one outside of Pennsylvania would like to see Oz lose more than Oprah Winfrey—the entire reason we’re in this mess in the first place.
Until now, Winfrey had remained neutral when asked about Oz’s campaign. Perhaps now that the 62-year-old is polling just a fraction of a point behind Fetterman, she threw her support behind the Pennsylvania native during an OWN Your Vote virtual event on Thursday evening.
“I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania…but I will tell you all this, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“There are clear choices out there…to represent the values—this is what we’re talking about—the values we hold dear,” she continued, over the Zoom presentation. “The values of inclusion, the values of compassion…that so many of us share, so use your discernment.
“Use your discernment and choose wisely for the democracy of our country,” she added.
Oz’s television career first began after appearing as a “health expert” for five seasons on The Oprah Winfrey Show, before Winfrey handed him his own nationwide syndicated program, The Dr. Oz Show, in 2009. He was also a regular on “Oprah’s Allstars,” a weekly roundtable show on Winfrey’s OWN, as well as a 2014 OWN reality series, Surgeon Oz, before eventually dipping his toe into politics as a supporter of former President Donald Trump.
Over the summer, Oz’s campaign was plagued with embarrassments and missteps to the point that the GOP even pulled funding from his campaign. It didn’t help that Fetterman’s campaign made short work of him on social media, turning his own ads against him and enlisting the help of Snooki from the Jersey Shore to troll him on social media.
As Fetterman has been slow on the campaign trail while recovering from a stroke that he suffered in May, Oz’s campaign has finally managed to creep up on his opponent by using his ongoing health issues against him. In other words, many Pennsylvanians are currently holding their breath, and not just because the Phillies are down 2-3 in the World Series.
