But Fetterman may be the first candidate in recent memory to have visited each county in his state not once, but twice. When Fetterman became Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor in 2019, he undertook a 67-county listening tour about cannabis legalization. Columnist Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer suggests this laid the groundwork for Fetterman’s widespread popularity, observing that when Fetterman returned to each county as a candidate for Senate, “he was shrouded in the purple haze of a political rock star.”…

The attention a high-profile candidate like Fetterman has paid to rural areas of his state may begin to ease the rural inferiority complex that’s been festering for decades, as rural economies have stagnated, small towns have lost population and country folks have become the butt of jokes. One 27-year-old woman in Westmoreland County, part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area that struggles against the “Pennsyltucky” stereotype, praised Fetterman for showing up and speaking bluntly. “We’re not just silly hillbillies,” she told a New York Times reporter.