The Bob Casey vs. Dave McCormick Senate matchup is officially set. Here’s what each has to do to win.
Will Dave McCormick's campaign war chest enable to oust the three-term senator or will Bob Casey's name recognition and goodwill carry him through November?
Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick won uncontested primaries in Pennsylvania Tuesday, launching what is expected to be one of the most expensive and politically consequential Senate contests in state history.
McCormick lost the 2022 Republican Senate primary to celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz by less than half a percentage point, but this time around the former hedge fund CEO and combat veteran coalesced support early to clear an easy path to the nomination.
“Pennsylvania deserves better than Bob Casey,” McCormick said Tuesday at his election night party in Pittsburgh.
Casey’s Senate seat is one of 23 that Democrats are trying to defend this election, compared to just 11 seats for the GOP.
“I’m running … to continue to deliver for the people of Pennsylvania,” Casey said in a Zoom call with reporters this weekend after a string of his campaign events were canceled due to a pending Senate vote on a foreign aid package.
Given the national stakes, both parties are prepared to drop a glut of money into the general election race after the noncompetitive primary.
McCormick already has the backing of a super PAC that’s raked in more than $21 million, funded by hedge fund CEOs. And various outside Democratic groups have pledged to put millions behind supporting Casey’s candidacy.
Casey, a governor’s son first elected to the Senate in 2006, is a familiar name in Pennsylvania. He’s handily won his past Senate contests, but he’s never faced a challenger as well-funded as McCormick.
Presidential contest will overshadow Senate race, shape strategy
This year’s Senate contest is almost guaranteed to be more muted in tone than the heated 2022 midterm battle between Sen. John Fetterman and celebrity doctor Oz.
Casey and McCormick have started throwing punches, but they land more softly. While Fetterman and Oz traded personal jabs on social media, McCormick has on several occasions described Casey as a nice guy.
And this year, a presidential contest at the top of the ballot could dim some of the spotlight on the Senate race.
Both candidates will have to navigate the challenge of sharing a ticket with an unpopular presidential candidate in a state where the rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will dominate voters’ focus.
“Their strategies will waver and change until the very end depending on what’s happening at the top of the ticket,” political strategist Mustafa Rashed predicted.
When Casey ousted incumbent Republican Rick Santorum in 2006, he attacked Santorum for voting closely with President George W. Bush, whose popularity had fallen sharply.
“Casey has to face that same argument against him now,” said Republican National Committeeperson Andy Reilly, who worked on Santorum’s campaign.
Casey, a fellow son of Scranton who is closely linked with Biden, will have to find ways to distinguish himself from the president to outrun Biden in more Republican areas.
Democratic strategist J.J. Balaban said Casey would be smart to do a 67-county tour, similar to how Fetterman campaigned before his stroke in 2022.
“There’s a reservoir of goodwill for the Casey family in smaller counties,” Balaban said. “Senator Casey will lose most if not all of the smaller counties, but the goal is to lose by smaller margins, and a personal visit there may be bigger news in those areas than visiting larger, more urbanized counties.”
McCormick will likewise need to outperform Trump in the suburbs, which have become increasingly Democratic in recent years.
“You cannot win the state of Pennsylvania unless you can compete in the corners and Bob Casey’s gonna compete in the corners,” Reilly said, referring to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh’s suburbs and to swing counties in the state’s Northwest and Northeast.
McCormick would be best served to run in the suburbs “like he’s running for county commissioner,” Democratic strategist Balaban said. He’s started doing that with an aggressive schedule winding him around the state on his campaign bus.
And he needs to keep drawing a line between Biden and Casey while navigating a tricky political relationship of his own with Trump, who endorsed him at a rally earlier this month.
“Dave’s strength is he is an independent conservative guy, not a lifelong politician,” Reilly said. “He has to establish that he’s going to vote for what’s best for Pennsylvania, not business interests, not what’s best for MAGA.”
Republicans only need to pick up two seats to retake the Senate, and only one if Trump is elected president.
McCormick is running as a more moderate candidate than he did when he was vying for the GOP nomination against Oz in 2022. And he’s portrayed himself as an outsider running against a career politician.
“Bob Casey … has voted for the excessive spending that’s led to inflation, the war on fossil fuels, open border policies, and he’s out of touch,” McCormick said.
Casey has used his Pennsylvania bona fides to contrast with McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO who grew up in Pennsylvania and moved back in 2022 but still lives part-time in Connecticut.
“You have an out-of-state candidate being funded and backed by out-of-state billionaires,” Casey said of McCormick on the call with reporters. “You can’t trust him to be on the side of workers, on the side of families, and on the side of the most vulnerable.”
At the polls on Tuesday, voters from both parties expressed confidence in their chosen candidates.
Kate Rivera, president of the Riverwards Area Democrats, said she liked Casey’s subdued campaign style.
“I’m a politics nerd so I love his little map schtick,” Rivera said. “But I think that Democrats broadly know what’s on the line this November and I think he’s also just, like, a genuine person who can connect to voters in that way.”
McCormick, Rivera said, “doesn’t even live in Pennsylvania.”
At an election night party in Pittsburgh, McCormick supporter Kim Lyttle, 74, a retired bank executive from Indiana County, said he thinks McCormick’s biography can appeal to people looking for a leader “above and beyond party lines.”
”I think he’s a very bright young man, and I think he’d be very energetic in his job,” he said of the 58-year-old candidate. “And as a West Point cadet, and then an Army veteran and officer who sought combat duty in Afghanistan, I just think he brings a lot of leadership and character to his campaign.”
Staff writer Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.
This story has been updated to correctly identify Kim Lyttle, one of McCormick’s supporters.
