Cutting rural losses helped Fetterman win Senate seat in Pennsylvania, and may have saved Senate for Democrats

Fetterman in Murrysville, pop. 20,000, in Westmoreland County, in early October. (N.Y. Times photo by Justin Merriman)

Democrats may maintain control of the U.S. Senate because their Pennsylvania nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, campaigned in rural counties that he knew he would lose but that he thought would give him more of their vote than they gave President Biden two years ago. They did, and he won.

Fetterman used that strategy mainly in his home territory of southwestern Pennsylvania. That's what Jake Tapper and John King of CNN highlighted on their coverage of the race early this morning, citing three counties where Fetterman lost big -- but not as big as Biden did. He cut the losses.

"Winning, for him, is cutting the margins," King said. At 1:13 a.m., with Fetterman 2 percentage points ahead of Republican Mehmet Oz, CNN projected him the winner.

To many rural Democrats, Fetterman's victory will be a validation of what some of them have been saying for years, that their candidates can win rural votes if they will just show up and ask for them. The nation's leading urban Democrat, Barack Obama, said it more than 10 years ago.

"I never expected we would turn these red counties blue but we did what we needed to do, and we carried that conversation across every one of those counties, and that's why I'll be the next U.S. senator from Pennsylvania," Fetterman told supporters. The seat is held by Pat Toomey, a Republican who didn't seek re-election.

Pennsylvania was the main toss-up in Senate races Tuesday, and thus seen as the most likely decider of Senate control -- unless the race in Georgia goes to a runoff because neither candidate exceeds 50 percent of the vote. That seems likely; Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is leading Republican Herschel Walker with 49.1% of the vote, with 95% of precincts counted. But if Democrats keep the seats they now have in Arizona, which looks likely, and Nevada, which is much less clear, the Georgia runoff won't matter.

To the west of Pennsylvania, in Ohio, Hillbilly Elegy author and Republican nominee J.D. Vance beat U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan to win the seat of retiring Sen. Rob Portman.