John Fet­ter­man, 46, has served as may­or of the hard­scrab­ble Pitts­burgh sub­urb of Brad­dock for over a decade. His tat­toos (of the town’s zip code and the dates of its most recent mur­ders) and his stature (near­ly 7 feet) have drawn more atten­tion than his pol­i­tics. Re-elect­ed twice by huge mar­gins after win­ning his first run by one vote, the ​“coolest may­or in Amer­i­ca,” as the Guardian dubbed him, is now vying with estab­lish­ment Democ­rats for a U.S. Sen­ate seat. While still an under-fund­ed under­dog, Fet­ter­man is polling com­pet­i­tive­ly: In head-to-head match-ups in Octo­ber, he trailed Repub­li­can incum­bent Pat Toomey by 7 points, and his Demo­c­ra­t­ic com­peti­tors trailed Toomey by 7 and 3.

I’m coming from a community from the fringe of society that’s been written off. So we’re reminding Democratic voters what the party should stand for, what we with Democratic principles should fight for.

Fet­ter­man, who is white, has led the charge to revi­tal­ize the most­ly black Brad­dock, which was aban­doned by indus­try in the 1970s. Near­ly 40 per­cent of its house­holds now fall below the pover­ty line. Except for its racial demo­graph­ics, Brad­dock is typ­i­cal of the strug­gling Rust Belt towns that may prove piv­otal in this elec­tion. Some of Don­ald Trump’s biggest ral­lies have been staged in these ​“lega­cy com­mu­ni­ties,” draw­ing sup­port­ers still reel­ing from the Reces­sion. Bernie Sanders, mean­while, is hop­ing to ral­ly the work­ing class against the cor­po­rate inter­ests that have desert­ed it. Like Sanders, Fet­ter­man is in a bat­tle for both the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion and the soul of the par­ty. Can he win over his state’s infa­mous­ly con­ser­v­a­tive, most­ly white cen­ter, by woo­ing the rur­al work­ing-class vot­ers that have fled the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in droves? In These Times talked with Fet­ter­man about Bernie, Brad­dock and 2016.

Why run for Senate?

When I was run­ning a great GED pro- gram and enjoy­ing a lot of suc­cess, two of my stu­dents were gunned down a cou­ple weeks apart. And I couldn’t change that as a pro­gram direc­tor, so I ran for may­or. Now I want to have an impact the direc­tion of this coun­try that I can’t have as a may­or of a small com­mu­ni­ty. The coun­try needs a cham­pi­on for the for­got­ten lega­cy cities. You see the hor­ror that’s emerg­ing in Flint, Michi­gan. Well, Brad­dock was no dif­fer­ent. Every com­mu­ni­ty needs a cham­pi­on, and I want to be the cham­pi­on for lega­cy cities like my own.

Between Bernie Sanders and Don­ald Trump, this elec­tion sea­son seems to be break­ing every rule polit­i­cal sci­en­tists have writ­ten. Why do you think that is?

Peo­ple are tired of prepack­aged things. They want to go to a real restau­rant, not TGI Fri­days. Most polit­i­cal can­di­dates are like TGI Fri­days — fran­chis­es of what the par­ty wants them to be. But we’re com­ing out with an authen­tic prod­uct. I’m com­ing from a com­mu­ni­ty from the fringe of soci­ety that’s been writ­ten off. So we’re remind­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers what the par­ty should stand for, what we with Demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples should fight for.

Brad­dock is close to 80 per­cent African-Amer­i­can, but in run­ning for state- wide of office, you’re talk­ing with work­ing- class whites the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty lost to the GOP. How can Democ­rats win them back?

Repub­li­cans con­tact me all the time say­ing, ​“Look, I may not agree with every­thing you’re say­ing, but I’m chang­ing my reg­is­tra­tion to vote for you because I respect what you do.” In Penn­syl­va­nia, you either live in a lega­cy city, used to live in one or still have fam­i­ly there. We want to see these cities suc­ceed. Why have we squan­dered tril­lions of dol­lars on unsuc­cess­ful inter­ven­tions in the Mid­dle East yet let our com­mu­ni­ties fall into despair?

Do you see your cam­paign as an effort to change the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party?

My cam­paign is to pro­mote what I see as its core val­ues. Gold­man Sachs is nev­er going to pay me $200,000 for an hour-long speech. But if they did, I’d say I’m going to bring Wall Street excess to heel. There needs to be con­gruity in the mis­sion, val­ues and prin­ci­ples that we’re will­ing to fight for. That’s why I endorsed Bernie Sanders.

Don­ald Trump’s slo­gan is ​“Make Amer­i­ca Great Again.” Is there an alter­na­tive nar­ra­tive that you’d like to advance?

My cam­paign has released a one-sen­tence press release call­ing Don­ald Trump a ​“jagoff ‚” which is West­ern Pa. for jerk. Pop­ulism has a dark side and Don­ald Trump is min­ing that for all it’s worth by say­ing rep­re­hen­si­ble things about Mus­lims, about immi­grants, about you name it. If you get to live vic­ar­i­ous­ly through that and cheer him on, I don’t expect to get your vote, and frankly, I don’t want it.

Do you describe your­self as populist?

I would describe myself as a real­ist. It’s real that you can’t live off $9 an hour. Cli­mate change is real. I think we can all agree that you shouldn’t hear gun­shots at night. I don’t call that pop­ulist. It’s just the com­mon­sense char­ac­ter­is­tics of a com­pas­sion­ate democracy.

How did you come to your polit­i­cal beliefs, and to Braddock?

I grew up in York, in a con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can house­hold. I joke that I hope I’m the first Demo­c­rat that my fam­i­ly votes for. I was real­ly on that same con­ser­v­a­tive path. Then, in my sec­ond semes­ter of busi­ness school in 1993, my friend was killed in a car acci­dent. That real­ly rocked my world. I had nev­er expe­ri­enced a prox­im­i­ty to death quite like that. I joined Big Broth­ers Big Sis­ters in New Haven, Conn., and was paired up with an 8‑year-old boy whose father had just died of AIDS. His moth­er was suc­cumb­ing to AIDS as well, and she died three or four weeks lat­er. All this hap­pened six blocks away from Yale, one of the world’s most pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ties. That tore me up. I had nev­er seen such dis­par­i­ty and inequal­i­ty. So I joined Ameri­Corps to teach GED class­es, and worked in Pitts­burgh for two years before going to Har­vard for grad­u­ate school. When I came back, I was offered the chance to start a pro­gram to help get young peo­ple back on track. That’s how I end­ed up in Brad­dock in 2001.

How has Brad­dock changed and why?

Brad­dock, found­ed in 1755, was where the French and Indi­an War start­ed, and where George Wash­ing­ton received his first com­bat expe­ri­ence. It is also where Andrew Carnegie start­ed his steel mill, and per­fect­ed the Besse­mer process that made steel extra strong. Brad­dock was the Sil­i­con Val­ley of its day: pros­per­ous and vital to nation­al inter­ests. Fast for­ward again, and it’s essen­tial­ly been torn apart by large macro forces like dein­dus­tri­al­iza­tion, glob­al­iza­tion, free trade and sub­ur­ban­iza­tion. That’s what we’ve been push­ing back against.

What have you accomplished?

We’ve gone five-and-a-half years with- out a mur­der. We elim­i­nat­ed the extreme vio­lence that was endem­ic to the com­mu­ni­ty, through a com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing mod­el that doesn’t gen­er­ate civil­ian com­plaints or alle­ga­tions of abuse. After the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh Med­ical Cen­ter closed its hos­pi­tal in town, we opened an urgent care cen­ter and restored afford­able health­care to our cit­i­zens. We’ve also been able to attract small busi­ness­es back.

What about gun con­trol? Many peo­ple in Penn­syl­va­nia like hav­ing guns.

I’m one of them. I’m a gun own­er. I’ve gone deer hunt­ing since I was a teenag­er. But why should you be able to buy an AR-15 if you’re on a no-fly list? It’s the mon­ey. Gun con­trol is a mon­ey and pol­i­tics issue. I sup­port the steps the pres­i­dent has tak­en recent­ly. What’s hor­ri­ble is that he has to go at it alone.

How do you hope to get mon­ey out of politics?

Repeal Cit­i­zens Unit­ed. Bil­lion­aires and mil­lion­aires lit­er­al­ly make can­di­dates jump like dogs through flam­ing hoops. You have can­di­dates for pres­i­dent doing tricks for the Koch broth­ers, say­ing, ​“Please, please pick me.”

I imag­ine that you’re not get­ting big checks from corporations.

We’re not rolling around in $2,700 checks. But why should a young mother’s vote in Brad­dock mean less because she can only give $10? If you’re rich, you can dri­ve a nicer car and live in a nicer house. But you shouldn’t be able to shop for candidates.

Do you cam­paign dif­fer­ent­ly based on where you are in the state?

It’s a mis­con­cep­tion that there are no Democ­rats in con­ser­v­a­tive parts of Penn­syl­va­nia. They might be out­num­bered, but they’re there. We’ve got­ten warm recep­tions in cen­ter-city Philadel­phia, as well as Carlisle and Doylestown. We’ve been cam­paign­ing on an authen­tic message.