US midterm elections: John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz spar in closely-watched debate
- Race in Pennsylvania will help decide whether Democrats retain control of the Senate
- Debate represented a major political test for Fetterman, who suffered a stroke in May
A heavily-tattooed recovering stroke patient and a celebrity surgeon locked horns in the only debate scheduled for one of the most closely-watched US midterm election races.
There was no shortage of spectacle as the imposing 2.06-metre Democrat John Fetterman and Republican former daytime TV mainstay Mehmet Oz made their pitches to voters in Pennsylvania’s US Senate race.
The pair sparred for an hour on Tuesday in state capital Harrisburg in a high stakes encounter for both parties, with Republicans needing to flip just one seat to prize the upper chamber of Congress from Democratic control.
Fetterman’s team had been doing some expectation-setting amid the 53-year-old’s comeback from a stroke in May.
The lieutenant governor is making an encouraging physical recovery but struggles to grasp some spoken words and occasionally to access words when speaking, according to his doctors.
“If he’s on TV, he’s lying,” Fetterman said of Oz early in the debate, accusing his opponent of misleading voters about his record and complaining that the doctor has “never let me forget” about the stroke.