Democrat John Fetterman held back-to-back rallies Saturday for the first time since his stroke in May, the latest step for a candidate who has eased his way back to the trail as he battles celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
The lieutenant governor spoke in Philadelphia -- his first open-press event in the city since he launched his campaign, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer -- before rallying in the politically competitive Lehigh Valley with vulnerable House incumbent Susan Wild.
He recycled the same messaging that has riled his supporters since the summer – jabs at Oz for his New Jersey ties and jokes about a video in which Oz shopped for crudite.
"[My team] said, 'Check out the crudite video.' And I heard that, and I actually thought it was a stroke thing. I said, 'What is this?' and Googled, 'What is a crudite?'" Fetterman said, to roars of laughter from the crowd, which the campaign said exceeded 1,000 people.
Wild is fighting to hang on to her House seat in a district that was redrawn this year to include more Republican voters. Cook Political Report labels her race “Lean R,” and she encouraged the crowd to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot.
In an on-camera interview with ABC News after the event, Wild said that the redistricting has not affected her message to voters.
“People across my district, no matter what part of the district they’re in, they have the same issues,” she said. “People here are concerned about jobs, about making sure that we bring back this ‘made in America’ mentality, because that’s what this district was founded on.”
-ABC News' Will McDuffie
