Fetterman enjoys $1.6M cash advantage over Oz heading into campaign's final weeks

While Republican Mehmet Oz continues to tap into his personal wealth to power his Pennsylvania Senate bid, Democrat John Fetterman has been outraising him with the help of small-dollar donations, the latest campaign finance reports show. 

From July through September, Fetterman took in about $22 million — far exceeding what he’s ever before raised in a three-month period, according to his campaign.

During the same timeframe, Oz brought in roughly $16 million, about $7 million of that in the form of personal loans to his campaign. The celebrity physician has loaned himself more than $21 million so far during the race, according to the financial disclosures released over the weekend. 

But Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College, said even these large figures don't fully capture the spending in the high-profile race, with outside groups also dumping money into a contest that could determine the partisan balance in the U.S. Senate.

"It's an incredibly expensive cycle," he said. "And the amount of money, both in and out of the campaigns, is extraordinary right now."

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Fetterman has more cash on hand going into the final weeks of the campaign, reporting a balance of $4.2 million compared to Oz’s $2.5 million.

However, the Democrat has watched his once-sizable polling lead over Oz slipping away in recent weeks, as the campaign season accelerates and Republicans ramp up an advertising blitz against him. 

Borick said Oz has narrowed the gap with Fetterman, among other things, by running television ads that portray the lieutenant governor as soft on crime, a tactic that likely resonates well among older voters in the Philadelphia suburbs.

"In an area where people are concerned about elevated crime rates, then [Fetterman] becomes less attractive," the professor explained.

As in the past, smaller donations seem to be buoying Fetterman’s campaign. His disclosure indicates that about $10.5 million in contributions were below the $200-threshold that triggers an individual itemization requirement. 

Altogether, the Democrat’s team says they accepted 595,000 contributions from more than 330,000 individuals during the three-month reporting period, yielding an average donation amount of about $38. 

Fetterman’s campaign contends these statistics show their candidate has grassroots support unmatched by his Republican rival. 

“The people of Pennsylvania have John’s back, and that’s something even Dr. Oz’s millions could never buy,” Brendan McPhillips, Fetterman’s campaign manager, said in a prepared statement. 

Oz, on the other hand, attributes his opponent’s fundraising success to a sophisticated digital fundraising machine rather than to any groundswell of support from Pennsylvania voters.

“If you’re a newbie to the game, you don’t have — as Fetterman has — six years to build up the database of hundreds of thousands of names who will give you $100 at a shot, $200 at a shot,” Oz told the Hill in a recent interview. “I raise my money the old fashioned way: I called people, I held events, potlucks. I did whatever I could to bring folks in.”

The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle, Borick said. Fetterman's political networks in Pennsylvania are an advantage for him, according to Borick, but the Democrat's campaign is also smart to seize on Oz's self-funding as evidence that he's out of touch with regular people.

As the race enters its final stretches, Oz is likely calibrating how much more of his own money he'll have to invest and how much aid he can get from fundraising and from national Republicans, the professor added.

More:John Fetterman has reforged every political office he’s held. Now what?

The race will help determine which party has the majority in the narrowly-divided U.S. Senate, and with such high stakes, powerful groups in both parties have been willing to pour millions into the Pennsylvania contest. 

By early October, roughly $137 million had been committed to current and future advertising in the Pennsylvania Senate general election contest, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. 

The super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has spent nearly $32 million so far backing Oz, according to the Hill. And groups linked with former President Donald Trump and Planned Parenthood have also invested hundreds of thousands in advertising in the race, AdImpact has reported.