Two eras, two videos, shot against the same physical backdrop, convey political messages that seem a world removed from each other.

The contrasting films, produced eight years apart, neatly distill the evolution of John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s maverick senator in his journey from progressive icon to a man seemingly more at ease with his nominal Republican opponents than his fellow Democrats.

Fetterman’s evolution has been so stark that some Democrats fear he will go over to the Republicans – jeopardizing the party’s hopes of regaining control of the Senate – despite his disavowals of such intentions. Longtime activists say his stock within the party has dropped to the point where his chances of being re-elected as a Democrat are zero.

A 2018 video for Fetterman’s successful campaign to be the state’s lieutenant governor opens with footage of Braddock, Pennsylvania’s landmark Mon Valley Edgar Thomson steelworks to the soundtrack of Donald Trump condemning previous US presidents for allowing industrial jobs to disappear and vowing that only he could bring them back.

“Donald Trump hasn’t shown up since then, and he won’t because he never cared about places like this,” Fetterman says on camera, accusing Trump of using towns like Braddock as a prop.

Braddock, a down-at-the-heel town of fewer than 2,000 residents on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh, seemed emblematic of the left-behind communities Trump had wooed as he ran for president with promises to revive hollowed-out industries and restore lost jobs.

It is also where Fetterman, a mayor for more than decade, cut his teeth as a highly unorthodox politician who broke with convention to attract investment to a shattered local economy and kickstart community projects, sometimes with his own money. His no-holds-barred approach combined with his trademark dress of shorts and hoodie once earned him the moniker of “America’s coolest mayor”.

Braddock’s giant steel plant, which has dominated the local landscape since 1875, was the first in the US to be established by the steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, and is core to the town’s identity as a once thriving working-class hub now scarred by neglect.

But this month, Fetterman used it as a setting for another video – this time aimed at Republicans in their midterm convention gathering in Dallas and signaling solidarity with Trump.

“I’m a commonsense Democrat,” he proclaimed in a recorded message introducing his fellow Pennsylvania senator, Dave McCormick, a Republican and loyal Trump acolyte with whom he has forged a close bond. “I’m always trying to reject the extremes in socialism and that anti-American way of life.

“Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done. Right back over my shoulder, that’s the iconic US Steel mill, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that will work together and will work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life right here in the steel valley.”

The video was greeted with rapturous applause by Republicans, gathered at Trump’s behest to mobilize enthusiasm for November’s midterm elections amid sagging poll numbers.

But for Democrats, Fetterman’s incongruous appearance may be the last straw in a series of perceived betrayals that have fueled a clamor to block his bid to run for re-election in 2028, when his Senate seat is up for grabs.

“What happened to the guy that beat up on Donald Trump in 2018 because he didn’t care?” said Mike Sturla, who served as Democratic state legislator from Lancaster for 34 years and staged a fundraising dinner for Fetterman’s 2022 Senate run after being captivated by his earlier campaign video and subsequent performance as lieutenant governor.

“Trump was still popular at the time and people were reluctant to attack him. So I was really impressed. I was like, ‘Good lord! Finally, somebody’s willing to just stand up and punch the guy on the nose.’”

By contrast, Fetterman’s latest video, argued Sturla, created “the perception that he’s complicit” with the Republicans.

Cries of disloyalty have steadily increased since Fetterman took his Senate seat in 2023, seven months after suffering a debilitating stroke while campaigning in Lancaster that left with him acute speech and communication challenges. He later underwent treatment for clinical depression, a common post-stroke condition.

Criticism has intensified since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, with Fetterman repeatedly praising the US president’s protectionist policies and appeal to working-class voters.

While most Democrats recoiled at Trump’s second presidential victory, Fetterman took steps to mollify the man he had once vilified, visiting him at Mar-a-Lago days before the inauguration.

Since then, Fetterman has gained a high profile as a strident advocate for Israel, defending it from charges of genocide in Gaza even as fellow Democrats openly criticize or distance themselves from the country.

Fetterman’s changing political profile has coincided with allegations that he has shown scant interest in doing his job as a senator. The Wall Street Journal reported that he had declined to meet a group of paralyzed military veterans to discuss legislation that could help their care, citing illness, yet was well enough on the same day to keep an appointment with Fox News to discuss Israel and the war with Iran. (The Guardian contacted Fetterman’s office.)

He has also refused to meet officials from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to discuss Medicaid cuts, according to the newspaper.

In the Senate, Fetterman is said to have avoided close ties to fellow Democrats while striking up friendships with Republicans, such as McCormick and Katie Britt, a conservative senator from Alabama.

It is a far cry from his spell as Braddock’s mayor, and Sturla said it also contrasted with Fetterman’s time as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, when he visited each of the state’s 67 counties in a controversial campaign to legalize marijuana, a cause which enamored him to liberal-minded progressives and gave him a statewide platform to launch his Senate campaign.

Lynn Miller, a longtime Democratic activist who was Fetterman’s de facto campaign manager in Lancaster county during his Senate campaign, said he triumphed in a primary over Conor Lamb, a Democratic representative who was seen as an establishment candidate, because he appeared to be progressive and “different”.

“I liked everything I heard,” said Miller, who recalls waiting to introduce Fetterman to an expectant audience at Millersville University, near Lancaster, only for the event to be canceled at the last moment. She later learned that he had suffered a stoke.

“He really emphasized that he was different, that he wasn’t a typical politician, and that just appealed.”

Miller now professes herself to be “disappointed” and is demanding the return of her campaign donations.

“His alliance at times with President Trump is unforgivable,” she said. “He says he’s a commonsense Democrat. Well, dude, that’s not how you sold yourself five years ago.

“I’ve put together the list of all the campaign contributions that I’ve made, and tried emailing addresses that I’ve been given. I want my donations back.”

Yet in Braddock, where Fetterman still lives, residual loyalty endures.

Residents and local business people insist that Fetterman – who sports a tattoo of the town’s zip code, 15104, and of the dates of murders that happened on his watch – remains unchanged.

Some cite the Braddock Free Store, set up and run by Fetterman’s wife, Gisele, to give away donated goods free of charge, as an example of the public-spiritedness the couple bring to community.

The makeshift facility is emblazoned with messages of peace and harmony that are replicated throughout the town center – and which contrast with the blighted environment, in the form of grandiose but derelict buildings and empty lots.

Approached at the store on Braddock Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare, Gisele Fetterman declined to be interviewed, adding that her husband was in Washington.

Speculation has swirled about the state of the couple’s marriage, with some noting Gisele’s reduced profile after having previously played a critical role in her husband’s campaigning.

“I really liked how he deferred to Gisele. I liked the role that she was playing,” said Miller. “But she has like disappeared from social media. She used to have a huge presence on social media promoting him, things about the family, etc.”

But Cheryl Johnson, who runs Aunt Cheryl’s Cafe in a community center building that Fetterman helped to purchase with $50,000 of his own funds, said the senator was being harshly criticized for bipartisan cooperation that would have been considered normal in a less-polarized era.

“Some of the things Senator Fetterman has done, I think at another time would not have been criticized as much,” Johnson argued. “What has he done that has hurt the Democrats? He and McCormick are the two senators from the state of Pennsylvania. There was a time where you knew politicians went across the aisle.

“He has never been a cookie-cutter kind of guy. We knew he was different from the beginning, the way he presented himself – for instance, in fashion and how he dressed. He never cared if he offended people.

“But some of the things he and his wife have done for this community have been great. The fact that he would even come to a community like this says something.”

Al Boss, who runs a local optician’s office, fondly recalled Fetterman using the bulk of his 6ft 8in, 325lb frame to single-handedly rescue his car after it got stuck in a winter snow storm.

“I was driving a little Mercedes sports car and had got trapped in a snow drift,” said Boss, 76. “He practically lifted the backside of the car up and pulled me out of the snow. I don’t even think he was mayor then.”

Yet Fetterman’s altered political profile has not gone unnoticed.

Chris Baldy, 63, a materials chemist from Pittsburgh visiting Boss’s optician’s shop, said he had been “pleasantly surprised” that Fetterman’s Senate performance had chimed with his own Republican sympathies.

“When he was coming in, knowing this area and what he had done here, I was concerned that he was very far left,” said Baldy. “Now I see what he is doing is more what I would consider to be common sense.”

Jeanette, 68, a retired nurse who declined to give her last name, said she had moved to Braddock after being attracted by its newly built apartment blocks and the reputation that Fetterman’s actions as mayor had generated.

But the move had turned sour and Fetterman was no longer visibly present in the community. “This is not a good place. I want to leave,” she said, citing night-time crime, drug-taking and urgent home repairs that go unattended.

Referring to Fetterman, she added: “I don’t trust him any more. I used to like him and talk with him. You would see him every other day when he was trying to get elected. Now I haven’t seen him for a whole year, maybe two.”

Officials on the Allegheny country Democratic committee, which covers Braddock, did not respond to requests for comments. Members of the Braddock borough council and the state representative for the area, Abigail Salisbury, also did not respond after the Guardian visited their offices.

Analysts say such reticence may be partly caused by a wariness of driving Fetterman into defecting to the Republicans, a move that could stymie Democratic hopes of recapturing control of the Senate after November’s midterms. Fetterman has previously said he would only abandon the Democrats if they became “the anti-Israel party”.

But Mike Weidinger, a veteran activist in GOP-dominated Lancaster county with extensive state wide connections, wrote off Fetterman’s re-election chances when his seat comes up for grabs in 2028.

“He’ll never be elected again in this state as a Democrat,” Weidinger declared. If he wants to run for the Senate again, he will be primaried and he will lose.

“Among Democrat activists he’s toast as a Democrat. I think that’s a pretty common opinion across the state.”