HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican David McCormick won Pennsylvania’s crucial U.S. Senate seat as the former CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund defeated three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in Tuesday’s election after accusing the incumbent , supporting policies leading to inflation, domestic unrest and war.
The victory strengthens Republicans’ majority in the Senate, which they wrested from Democratic control this week, and was also the second most exorbitant race in the country, while Republican Donald Trump won the presidential race in the country’s key battleground state.
McCormick, 59, recaptured a GOP seat in Pennsylvania after Republicans lost one in 2022, paying off a bet party leaders made as they pushed McCormick to run and solidified support behind him.
In an interview on Fox News shortly after the Associated Press called the race on Thursday, the Trump-backed McCormick said: “People want change.”
“They are deeply troubled by the skyrocketing prices, the wide-open borders, the crime in our cities, the war on fossil fuels, and they want change and sensible leadership, and that’s why I think they elected President Trump, and I believe “That’s what she is. That’s why they chose me,” McCormick said.
Republican strategists attributed McCormick’s victory largely to Trump’s powerful performance in Pennsylvania, where he beat Vice President Kamala Harris by about 2%, while Democrats under President Joe Biden struggled with headwinds such as voter dissatisfaction over inflation.
That was enough to propel McCormick to victory, they said.
The victory over Casey is earth-shattering for the Democratic establishment in Pennsylvania. Casey is the namesake of a former two-term governor and the longest-serving Democrat in the Pennsylvania Senate.
As of Tuesday, Casey, 64, had won six statewide general elections since 1996 but had never been on the same ballot as Trump.
While the votes were still being counted, McCormick was ahead of Casey by about 31,000 votes, or half a percentage point.
Casey didn’t budge Thursday, and his campaign pointed to a statement from the state’s top election official that at least 100,000 ballots still needed to be counted, including provisional ballots as well as military and overseas ballots.
In a statement, Casey said the vote counting process must take place and every vote must be counted.
“I have dedicated my life to ensuring that Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard, whether in the Senate or in free and fair elections,” Casey said. He added, “This is what Pennsylvania deserves.”
After serving as CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, and serving in the highest levels of former President George W. Bush’s administration, McCormick leveraged contacts from across government, politics and finance to secure support for his campaign.
It was McCormick’s second straight election, this time with a clear primary and Trump’s support. In the exorbitant seven-way primary in 2022, he narrowly lost to the Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz.
His wealth – he will be one of the richest senators when he joins the chamber – and his connections have led him to be viewed by Republicans as someone who can both raise campaign funds and support himself for a Senate race.
McCormick conveyed the consistent message that Casey was an inactive and frail career politician who was a key ally of Biden and Harris. McCormick insisted he would bring leadership skills to the job.
McCormick also benefited from tens of millions of dollars in campaign money from allies in all areas of hedge funds and securities trading.
He campaigned vigorously, often traveling around the state by bus and appearing on stage at almost every Trump rally in Pennsylvania, Trump’s most visited state.
McCormick was comfortable in front of television cameras, a skill he honed as a senior Treasury Department official who gave regular media briefings at the start of the 2008-09 recession and a prominent Wall Street figure in demand for speaking engagements.
He has a long resume that includes being decorated for his military service in the Gulf War, earning a doctorate from Princeton University and running the online auction house FreeMarkets Inc. – which put his name on a skyscraper during the tech boom in Pittsburgh – and sits on the boards of prominent institutions, including Trump’s Defense Advisory Council.
McCormick also had baggage.
He repeatedly tried to soften his stance against abortion rights after celebrating the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the landmark 1972 Roe v. Wade decision and end half a century of federal protection of abortion rights. In the end, McCormick insisted that he would oppose a federal abortion ban and maintain Pennsylvania’s law that allows abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
He also sought to address concerns about Republican control of the Senate by saying he would not vote to end the filibuster, a Senate rule that effectively makes 60 the minimum number of votes needed for passage of laws are required to control the majority.
McCormick has faced accusations — first in the 2022 GOP primary and then again from Casey — that he was a wealthy bootlegger from Connecticut’s posh Gold Coast trying to buy a Senate seat. McCormick lived there until he ran for Senate in 2022, and while he bought a home in Pittsburgh, he also maintained a massive home in Connecticut until a daughter graduated from high school earlier this year.
McCormick, for his part, emphasized his seventh-generation Pennsylvania roots, recounted his high school days wrestling in northern Pennsylvania towns – a sport that led him to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point – and his childhood as the son of two educators. His father became the first chancellor of Pennsylvania’s state university system – under Casey’s father.
Still, McCormick helped bring the Carpetbagger caricature to life by mispronouncing the name of one of Pennsylvania’s best-known local beers.
McCormick also suffered from a variety of attacks on his hedge fund’s investments, including allegations that he got affluent at America’s expense by buying shares in Chinese companies that the federal government later viewed as part of Beijing’s military and surveillance industrial sophisticated.
McCormick, meanwhile, sought to capitalize on unrest in the Middle East and on the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
McCormick accused Casey of supporting the Biden administration’s border policies, which he said had enabled illegal immigration, and of supporting policies that he said had enabled Iran to destabilize the Middle East.
He sought out Jewish voters by traveling to the Israel-Gaza border, speaking to Jewish audiences across the state and arguing that Casey and the Biden administration are failing to combat anti-Semitism and that Israel is not powerful in the Israel-Hamas war would have supported enough.
At the border, he supported Trump’s promise to carry out a mass deportation of immigrants in the country without permission – giving priority to those with criminal records – and pledged to push for US military action in Mexico to target fentanyl smuggling networks, a controversial idea that originally came from Mexico Trump.
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Follow Marc Levy at https://x.com/timelywriter.
