When Pennsylvania Democratic officials met toward the end of January, they showed a decided preference for U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb over Lt. Gov. John Fetterman for the open U.S. Senate seat resulting from the decision of Pat Toomey of Lehigh County not to seek another six-year term.

Pennsylvania is getting significant national attention because not only is this important seat being contested but so is the race to become the commonwealth’s next governor because Democrat Tom Wolf will be completing his second four-year term at the end of the year and can’t run again because of term-limit restrictions.

Despite this boost for Lamb, he did not receive the required two-thirds of the vote to receive the official party endorsement, so the race between him and Fetterman is still considered to be wide open.

The winner will take on the Republican nominee, who will be chosen from among a field of 12 candidates, including Dr. Mehmet Oz and recent entrant David McCormick, who in terms of publicity have been getting the lion’s share of attention mainly because they have been living outside of Pennsylvania but are believed to have established residency here to run for the Senate seat.

Republicans held their own meeting during the weekend and decided not to endorse candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate.

Republicans see both key positions to be prime pickings for them, but Democrats are hoping to flip the Senate seat to give the party some breathing room in the U.S. Senate which now has 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. When ties occur, as there have been during President Biden’s first year in office, Vice President Kamala Harris, who serves as Senate president, has cast the tie-breaking vote. She is allowed to vote only to break a tie.

Among the 10 Democratic candidates for Senate, along with Lamb and Fetterman, the only other one who even has an outside chance of consideration is State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of Philadelphia. Montgomery County Commissioner Chair Val Arkoosh withdrew during the weekend.

The Democratic committee vote was 159 for Lamb (15 short of the two-thirds needed for outright endorsement), 64 for Fetterman and 42 for Kenyatta. Arkoosh didn’t get the required 15% of the vote to make it to the second ballot vote, which no doubt prompted her decision to withdraw from consideration.

Here is the dilemma facing Democrats who admit that this is going to be a tough battle in the face of Republican momentum going into the mid-term elections.

With Fetterman, the clear front-runner in terms of name recognition and a significant campaign war chest – his campaign raised $21 million in 2021 -- Democrats are questioning whether this former mayor of Braddock in Allegheny County might be viewed as too far left and unconventional to draw many if any Republican votes in the general election.

More conventional Democrats are not happy with Fetterman’s unconventional approach to expected formalities and what they consider to be minimal norms of decorum and respect. A recent example of this was when President Biden visited Pittsburgh in late January to talk about the recently passed infrastructure bill. Fetterman got tongues clicking when he showed up in gym shorts and a hoodie to meet the President.

Many top Democrats believe Fetterman’s views are too far removed from the mainstream and will not fly well in the general election, assuming he makes it through the primary.

If one meets Fetterman, 52, he is not easily forgotten. With a shaved head, at 6-feet, 8-inches, he is probably the tallest state executive ever to hold office in the commonwealth. He mostly wears casual clothing, and his arm tattoos also call attention to his unconventionality.

His supporters say that his out-of-the-box approach to politics is what makes him effective, believable and relatable to a large swath of the Democratic party.

As a virtual unknown six years ago, Fetterman ran for U.S. Senate and finished third in a four-way Democratic primary with 20% of the vote. Toomey defeated Democratic nominee Katie McGinty 48.8%-47.3%, the closest Senate race in the nation that year.

With Lamb, they are dealing with a more centrist candidate who distinguished himself by winning a special election in a Republican-leaning congressional district then won re-election in a close race with Sean Parnell in 2020. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives serve two-year terms. There are no term limits on either them or senators.

Parnell was the early favorite to capture the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator after his endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

Lamb’s supporters still see the lack of outright endorsement as a victory for them after the he made a concerted push for the party nod. Earlier in the meeting of about 300 Democrats, about 50 supported a failed motion not to endorse in the primary at all, saying they didn’t want to influence voters’ choices.

No one should get overly confident of any of these committee vote outcomes. For example, McGinty did not receive the party’s endorsement in the 2016 Senate race but went on to beat the endorsed candidate, Joe Sestak.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.