Progressives just can’t seem to catch a break. Pennsylvania lieutenant governor John Fetterman seemed to offer left-leaning Democrats just the kind of candidate who many had argued could win elections in situations where typical Democrats couldn’t: a plainspoken populist who looked and talked like a regular person and who could appeal to both high-education Democratic partisans and the kind of disillusioned Rust Belt voters who went for Donald Trump six years ago.

Then he had a stroke.

A little over a week before the midterms, Fetterman’s near-death experience, which took place five months ago, has perhaps become the issue of his Senate race against Republican and daytime talk show host Dr Oz, which has narrowed recently. If nothing else, it’s certainly become the focus of media coverage of the race, ever since Fetterman sat down for an interview with NBC two weeks ago, giving the country a firsthand look at the extent of the damage the stroke had left on the once front-runner.