Pennsylvania's two U.S. senators, one a Democrat, the other a Republican, have formed a joint fundraising committee, a move that veteran political operatives say has no modern precedent in the state. The committee, called Common Ground PA, filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday and links the campaign and leadership PAC infrastructure of Sen. John Fetterman and Sen. Dave McCormick under a single fundraising umbrella.
Politico first spotted the filing on Wednesday. Neither the Pennsylvania Democratic Party nor the Pennsylvania Republican Party responded to requests for comment, a silence that says plenty about how uncomfortable the arrangement makes the institutional wings of both parties.
The FEC filing lists four joint fundraising participants: Every Vote PAC, Fetterman's leadership PAC; Pennsylvania Honor, McCormick's leadership PAC; Fetterman for PA, the senator's principal campaign committee; and Friends of Dave McCormick, the Republican's campaign committee. According to the nonpartisan watchdog OpenSecrets, joint fundraising committees allow two or more candidates, PACs, or party committees to share the costs of fundraising and split the proceeds.
McCormick campaign spokesman Mike DeVanney framed the committee as organic, not strategic:
"This is a donor driven effort. This group of donors value the collaboration exhibited by Senators McCormick and Fetterman for Pennsylvania and want to support both of them."
Fetterman's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. That non-response fits a pattern. The senator has increasingly let his actions, and his votes, speak louder than any press release.
Christopher Nicholas, a longtime GOP consultant and publisher of PA Political Digest, told The Center Square he has never seen elected officials from opposite sides of the aisle in Pennsylvania join forces to create a joint fundraising committee. His assessment was pointed:
"This would seem to be a very intriguing development, and a further sign of the close coordination on not just policy, but now political issues between Senators McCormick and Fetterman. What most is of interest to me now is who do they want to support through this new joint fundraising committee?"
That is the right question. Joint fundraising committees are typically used within parties, a presidential nominee and the national committee, for example, or a slate of Senate candidates pooling resources. A cross-party version linking two sitting senators' campaign accounts and leadership PACs is something else entirely. It signals that Fetterman and McCormick see a shared political interest worth formalizing with donor dollars.
Fetterman's willingness to work with a Republican senator is not new, but the financial dimension is. The two men appeared together in Philadelphia last Monday to encourage Pennsylvania families to enroll their children into Trump accounts. That joint public appearance came on the heels of months of Fetterman breaking with his own party on major votes and policy positions.
He was the only Democrat who voted to confirm several of Trump's cabinet nominations. He backed portions of the administration's immigration enforcement agenda. He supported the U.S. war with Iran. Each move widened the gap between Fetterman and the Democratic base that elected him in 2022.
The numbers reflect the cost. A Quinnipiac poll found 62 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats disapprove of Fetterman, while 73 percent of Pennsylvania Republicans approve of him. A Philadelphia Inquirer-Suffolk University poll found only 17 percent of Philadelphia Democrats view him favorably, compared to 60 percent of Republicans. Those are not the numbers of a man with a future in a Democratic primary.
As we have previously reported, Fetterman's approval among Democrats has cratered as his votes and public statements have moved further from the party line.
Fetterman addressed the party-switch speculation head-on in a Washington Post op-ed published in May. His words were characteristically blunt:
"Being an independent voice that works with the other side to deliver for Pennsylvanians might put me at odds with the party that I have stayed committed to and have no plans to leave, but I will continue to put the commonwealth and the country first. Plus, I'd be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats."
That declaration has not stopped the speculation, nor should it. A senator who insists he is staying in his party does not typically form a joint fundraising committee with a senator from the other party. He does not typically make joint public appearances promoting the opposing president's policy initiatives. And he does not typically watch his own party's chairman in the state float the idea of supporting him if he switches sides.
Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Greg Rothman told The Center Square in April that he would not rule out supporting Fetterman in 2028 for U.S. Senate if the senator changed parties. Trump himself has dangled a full endorsement to lure Fetterman into the GOP, with Senate control potentially hanging in the balance.
The trajectory is unmistakable, even if the destination remains officially uncertain.
For McCormick, the partnership carries its own political logic. He won his seat in 2024 by defeating then-Sen. Bob Casey, whom Fetterman had actively campaigned for. Fetterman called Casey "Pennsylvania's best senator" during Casey's farewell speech in December 2024. That was barely a year ago. Now Fetterman's campaign committee and McCormick's campaign committee share a fundraising vehicle.
McCormick has shown before that he can set aside political grudges when the math demands it. After losing the 2022 GOP primary to Dr. Mehmet Oz by a razor-thin margin, McCormick encouraged his supporters to back the Republican nominee and donated the maximum allowed under law to Oz's general election campaign.
The Fetterman alliance is a different kind of calculation. McCormick gains a bipartisan shield in a purple state. He also gains access to whatever donor universe finds the Fetterman brand appealing, a universe that, based on the polling, increasingly skews Republican.
The two senators recently appeared together at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference in a CNN-moderated discussion, presenting what the New York Post described as a united, bipartisan front. At that event, Fetterman publicly discussed the dangers of socialism infecting the Democratic Party, not the kind of talking point that endears a senator to progressive donors.
Nicholas asked the most important one: who does Common Ground PA intend to support? The FEC filing establishes the legal structure but does not specify which candidates, causes, or races the money will flow toward. A joint fundraising committee that pools resources from both senators' campaign accounts and leadership PACs could direct funds to like-minded candidates in either party, or to candidates who defy easy partisan categorization.
The identity of the donors driving this effort also remains unclear. DeVanney described them as people who "value the collaboration" between the two senators, but named no one. The fundraising target, if one exists, has not been disclosed.
Fetterman has told Democrats they cannot define themselves solely by opposing Trump, a message that has infuriated the party's activist base. His actions since then, the confirmation votes, the immigration enforcement support, the joint appearances with McCormick, have been consistent with that message, even as his party has moved in the opposite direction.
The silence from both state parties is telling. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment. Neither did the Pennsylvania Republican Party. When both parties decline to comment on the same development, it usually means neither has figured out how to spin it.
Meanwhile, as previously reported, leaked texts showed Fetterman mocking Democrats in private, a posture that aligns more comfortably with his public drift than with his stated commitment to the party.
Joint fundraising committees are legal instruments, not symbolic gestures. They require coordination on disbursement, compliance, and donor communication. They create shared financial infrastructure. When two senators from opposing parties build that infrastructure together, they are not just being friendly. They are making a bet that their political futures are intertwined.
Fetterman may never switch parties. He may run for reelection in 2028 as a Democrat, assuming the party will still have him. But the creation of Common Ground PA is the clearest signal yet that the senator from Braddock has decided his political survival depends more on the voters who approve of him than on the party label he carries.
In politics, money talks louder than op-eds. And right now, Fetterman's money is walking across the aisle.