Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) pointed to Elon Musk’s activities in Pennsylvania as moving the needle for Trump in the state.
Transcript via CNN:
TAPPER: Just before the election, you predicted on this show that the results would be close, but that Kamala Harris and the Democrats would ultimately carry Pennsylvania. They — that obviously did not happen.
You won in Pennsylvania by appealing to not only people in the urban centers like Philly or Pittsburgh, but appealing to blue-collar workers in red counties who voted for Trump this time around. Is the Democratic Party still the party of the working class?
FETTERMAN: Well, of course.
But I described the situation, and now I have already claimed that it’s going to be incredibly close. And I have also claimed that Trump is the strongest that he’s been in the three cycles there. And now things that were really unique that happened, the assassination attempt, that was in Butler. That’s 45 minutes from where we’re sitting right now, and then Musk. Musk is not just a typical kind of a surrogate. We’re all in that situation. We’re all in that business. We have surrogates. We have endorsements. And many of them often don’t really matter much, but now Musk made himself really active, and he was described as moving to Pennsylvania.
And I do believe that helped move the needle in that too. So Trump came in, in the strongest position, and he carried Pennsylvania and carried all of the swing states. So that’s what — that’s what’s reflected, that he came in a strong position, that — there’s going to be a lot of hot takes. There were a lot of hot takes before this election.
Musk’s illegal lottery and misinformation ads in the state of Pennsylvania definitely had some kind of impact. It is doubtful that they got Trump’s voters to the polls, but they definitely could have depressed Democratic turnout in key parts of the state. Elon Musk wasn’t the reason that Trump won Pennsylvania. The lack of Democratic turnout was why Trump won Pennsylvania, but according to Sen. Fetterman, Musk was a factor in Pennsylvania.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association