US Senator John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke while running for election in Pennsylvania last year, was hospitalized in Washington on Wednesday after feeling lightheaded.
(Bloomberg) — US Senator John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke while running for election in Pennsylvania last year, was hospitalized in Washington on Wednesday after feeling lightheaded.
“Initial tests did not show evidence of a new stroke, but doctors are running more tests and John is remaining overnight for observation,” his communications director, Joe Calvello, said in a statement.
Fetterman, 53, who attended President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address at the Capitol on Tuesday night, had gone to a Democratic Senate retreat on Wednesday.
Fetterman “left and called his staff, who picked him up and drove him to the George Washington University Hospital,” Calvello added. “He is in good spirits and talking with his staff and family.”
In November, Fetterman, then Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, defeated his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, a surgeon and television star, in a bitterly contested race that was crucial to both parties’ aspirations of attaining a majority in the Senate.
The victory was a personal triumph as Fetterman was recovering from the stroke that he suffered last May. He succeeded Pat Toomey, a Republican who didn’t seek reelection.
He returned to the campaign trail in August after intensive speech therapy. He relied on closed captioning to conduct press interviews and in his sole debate against Oz, in which an uneven performance intensified questions about his health.
The significance of the race was underscored just before the election when Biden and former President Barack Obama campaigned for Fetterman, and former President Donald Trump held a rally for Oz.
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