Mr. Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, suffered a stroke in May days before he won the Democratic Senate primary, and a question since has been whether his recovery was sufficient to eliminate the stroke’s effects as a voter concern.

The answer on display Tuesday evening is that Mr. Fetterman’s recovery is so poor that it’s now likely to be the primary factor in the outcome of this race.

No one watching this debate could have been unmoved by Mr. Fetterman’s struggle to articulate his views. GOP nominee Mehmet Oz, to his credit, made virtually no reference to the problem. The moderators raised the issue of “fitness to serve,” asking why Mr. Fetterman hadn’t released his medical records. He replied that “my doctor thinks I’m fit to serve.”

After Mr. Fetterman in early summer withdrew for months from campaigning, some Pennsylvania Democrats pressed him on the question of whether he should step aside and let an alternative candidate step in, such as Rep. Conor Lamb. Mr. Fetterman insisted he was up to completing a Senate campaign.

He went into this debate in a virtual polling tie with Mr. Oz. The debate ended with Mr. Oz delivering a strong, comprehensive closing statement, which heightened the hour-long contrast with Mr. Fetterman’s difficult performance. It’s now likely the Republicans will hold the Pennsylvania seat and win control of the Senate. Withholding crucial information from voters is a time bomb. This one detonated.

One thing the debate made starkly clear is the awful consequences of super-early voting laws. More than a half million people in Pennsylvania have voted already. Second thoughts? Forget it.

Pennsylvania was one of two significant debates Tuesday. The other was between New York state’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin. Notwithstanding Mr. Fetterman’s personal challenges, both were valuable political events.

Sitting through the two 60-minute debates (and in truth, an hour is just about enough), I think any viewer would have seen that an array of substantive policy distinctions exists between these two parties.

For the past two years, Democrats and pundits have tried to tee up the Republicans as the “party of Trump,” with President Biden using his office to ridicule the “MAGA Republicans.” The idea has been that any thinking voter should stop thinking about voting for Republicans because their politics starts and ends with something called “Trump.”

These two debates showed that isn’t true. Mr. Zeldin gave an intriguing answer when Mrs. Hochul demanded—“yes or no”—if he thought Mr. Trump was “a great president.”

Mr. Zeldin’s answer was that he had worked with Mr. Trump to fight the MS-13 Salvadoran gang on Long Island, move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, push the Mideast Abraham Accords, thwart the Iran nuclear deal and fight the Covid pandemic. Gov. Hochul replied lamely, “I take that as a resounding yes.” But which of those five Trump administration policies does she disagree with? Viewers were left to guess.

Inflation is the election’s No. 1 issue, but it interestingly didn’t dominate either debate. Both Messrs. Oz and Zeldin pressed the issue of crime, but the sleeper economic issue turned out to be fracking.

For progressives, fracking for natural gas is by now an act of pure environmental evil. Mr. Oz returned repeatedly to support for fracking, including building pipelines and a refinery in Philadelphia to ship liquefied natural gas to Europe.

Mr. Fetterman’s worst moment may have been his attempt to become a pro-fracker despite clear evidence he has opposed it in the past. “I do support fracking,” he said. “I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.”

Mr. Zeldin cited the economic boost that the “extraction of natural gas”—long banned by Gov. Andrew Cuomo—would give the state’s Southern Tier, near Pennsylvania.

On crime, Mr. Zeldin constantly asked Gov. Hochul why she won’t talk about locking up criminals. An exasperated Gov. Hochul finally said, “I don’t know why that is so important to you.” Expect to see that soon in a Zeldin TV commercial.

Crime gives Mr. Zeldin a shot at winning in a blue state. To do that, he needs a strong majority of independents and support from moderate-to-conservative Democrats.

Gov. Hochul can’t win without solid turnout by New York City’s Democrats. Since succeeding Mr. Cuomo, she has done or said nothing that might alienate the city’s condominium progressives.

Her routine equivocation in the debate—“I’m working on it”—let Mr. Zeldin appear to be on offense throughout. But Gov. Hochul’s protective blandness doesn’t give progressives much incentive to turn out. Indeed, progressive politics is looking more than ever like a liability if one has to run in a close election. Ask Stacey Abrams.

A final thought. The Democrats’ decision to load up so much of this election on “Trump” has been a mistake. Voters are looking forward. Mr. Trump’s greatest contribution to the Republican Party could lie in doing just enough to keep the Democrats’ bulls charging toward his cape unto exhaustion, while Republican candidates go about winning on their own merits.

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Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/midterms-october-surprise-john-fetterman-pennsylvania-oz-fracking-stroke-fitness-debate-new-york-hochul-zeldin-crime-11666814874