Yearning for Pennsylvania: McCormick vies for second chance in key Senate race

Pennsylvania is the ultimate battleground for 2024 with the White House, Senate, and House all poised to flip based on how voters here cast their ballots. In this series, Pining for Pennsylvania: Unlocking the crucial Keystone State, the Washington Examiner will look at the demographics, politics, and key issues that have made Pennsylvania the must-watch state of the year. Part One, below, looks at the stakes in the Senate race.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — The race for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat is all but set between incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Republican challenger David McCormick, even before voters head to the polls to vote in the primary on Tuesday night.

The race is expected to be one of the most competitive elections of the 2024 election cycle and could be the battleground for which party will win control of the Senate next year. Neither candidate is new to the Pennsylvania campaign trail, raising the stakes for both Republicans and Democrats as they pour millions of dollars into the Keystone State.

For McCormick, the race is a chance to learn from the 2022 midterm elections when Republicans lost the open Senate seat to Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) thanks to a contentious primary election that split the national GOP. Republicans ultimately tapped Dr. Mehmet Oz as the Republican nominee, who later lost to Fetterman by nearly five percentage points.

This time, however, McCormick is running unopposed for the GOP nomination, allowing him and Republican leaders to go all-in with their attacks against Casey early in the cycle. McCormick managed to secure the endorsements of House Republicans in Pennsylvania, ranging from former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA) to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who co-leads the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

“Pennsylvania is a very diverse state,” McCormick told the Washington Examiner. “I’ve got the early endorsement of the [Pennsylvania] GOP. The reason that is very different — it’s so significant is because every ounce of my energy, every dollar that my campaign spends, every bit of my focus is on beating Bob Casey.”

Another factor that could help McCormick this time around is the support of former President Donald Trump.

During the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans were largely split on whom to back for the GOP nomination. However, Trump gifted his coveted endorsement to Oz, paving the way for him to be tapped as the nominee.

Now, McCormick has the support of Trump due to the former president publicly endorsing him during a campaign rally earlier this month, possibly giving him a boost as he looks to topple his Democratic opponent.

The lack of a primary challenge has also allowed McCormick to focus on appealing not just to Republican voters but also to independents, whose support will be crucial to win the Senate seat in the swing state.

In an attempt to win over those independent voters, as well as some Democrats who have become disillusioned with their party, McCormick is seeking to tie Casey to President Joe Biden as the commander in chief grapples with low approval ratings nationwide.

“If I think about the issues that most motivate and concern Pennsylvanians right now on all those issues, Bob Casey’s been terrible and voted 98% of the time with Joe Biden,” McCormick said. “And so that’s the contrast: An outsider leader, someone who’s going to bring about change [and a] career politician status quo.”

Republican strategists say they plan to use Casey’s party-line voting record against him on the campaign trail, particularly in relation to Biden’s policies on the economy and immigration.

“Dave McCormick is running a first-rate campaign and taking nothing for granted as he unifies Republicans throughout Pennsylvania to defeat liberal career politician Bob Casey,” said Philip Letsou, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Casey is in the race of his life thanks to his support for Joe Biden’s war on American energy and open borders agenda.”

The border is expected to play a major role in key battleground states this year as Republicans have typically dominated the policy issue and have used it to motivate high voter turnout. Republicans have especially pointed to record-high immigration numbers under the Biden administration, accusing Democrats of perpetuating a crisis at the southern border.

Casey has pushed back against that narrative, pointing to his voting record in the Senate supporting key border legislation. Instead, the Pennsylvania Democrat sought to blame the GOP for tanking legislation to fix the issue, pointing to Senate Republicans who voted down a bipartisan border deal earlier this year.

“They did it again: Senate Republicans who first negotiated and then abandoned the bill that they had negotiated because their former president had asked him to blow it up,” Casey told the Washington Examiner.

Casey pointed to Trump’s opposition to the border security deal as the tipping point for Republicans to block the bill, using a similar strategy to McCormick’s to tie his opponent to his party’s presidential nominee.

“We [could] begin to deal with that crisis if Dave McCormick and other Republicans supported us getting that bill passed,” Casey said. “But he went along with all the MAGA supporters and said he wasn’t going to support the toughest border security bill in a generation.”

With both candidates employing that strategy, the race between Biden and Trump could become all the more important in the Keystone State in terms of how Casey and McCormick will fare in the Senate race.

Recent polling shows a dead heat between the two candidates in a state that has teetered between Republicans and Democrats over the last several elections. Trump won the state in 2016 before it flipped back to Biden in 2020, who defeated Trump by less than two percentage points.

But Casey also holds an advantage that McCormick can’t tap into: He’s held the Senate seat for 17 years after being elected in 2007. Casey is also the son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey Sr., giving the Democratic incumbent deep roots in the state as he runs for a fourth term.

However, GOP strategists say they plan to use Casey’s decades in office against him — hoping to boost McCormick as a political outsider attempting to oust a career politician.

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Democrats hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, with the advantage of having Vice President Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker vote if needed. As a result, Republicans only need to flip one Senate seat to win the majority should they win back the White House in 2024. If they do not regain the Oval Office, the party must secure two extra Senate seats.

There are 34 Senate seats up for grabs in the 2024 election cycle. Of those, Democrats must defend 23, compared to just 11 for Republicans — and nearly all competitive seats are held by Democrats, putting them on the defensive as they try to maintain their slim majority.