Sunday with the Senators: Pennsylvania

Second Carpetbagger in a Row

I am starting with this state because Pennsylvania is the tipping point state, and besides, I live here.

The candidates are Bob Casey, Jr. (D), the incumbent, and Dave McCormick (MAGA). I’m going to start this off with a Bob Casey story. When Casey was first elected in 2006, his personal position was that he was opposed to abortion. I called his office every day, to point out that I was a constituent, and his personal religious beliefs should not influence his voting: that should be related to the will of his constituents. When I say I called every day, not only did I call his DC office daily, but I left voicemails on weekends and holidays, AND I called his local office every Monday, just to start the week off right. I developed a relationship with “Andrew”, the staffer who answered most of my calls. Sometimes, I would add an additional comment about upcoming legislation. I started calling less after he endorsed Obama in 2008 and stopped for good after he voted for the ACA in 2010. His record on abortion was imperfect until 2022 (voting record here) when he went on record supporting a Federal law protecting abortion. He has been great on judges and has voted with President Biden’s positions 99% of the time.

Thus, Casey is running on a strong record, and his ads are solid. Here’s a sample:

And then there’s Dave. Dave lives in Connecticut. He is registered to vote in PA, but didn’t vote here until 2022, when he was running in the Senate primary against Mehmet Oz, who lived then, and now, in New Jersey (albeit he owns other homes, but mostly, Jersey). We in Pennsylvania hate carpetbaggers. Dave lost the primary to Mehmet by 951 votes.

It wasn’t just that Mehmet didn’t live here, but he didn’t “get” Pennsylvania. For example, he made an ad of himself shopping for “crudité” - this ad has been helpfully annotated by The Lincoln Project. And as an aside, the Mehmet ad raised $500,000 for his competitor, John Fetterman.

From current Senator John Fetterman, this response ad. It was about veggie trays. Here in PA, we love veggie trays. Crudité? Not so much. Senator Fetterman won by more than a quarter of a million votes.

Will that be enough this year? Outside groups are placing ads highlighting Dave’s opposition to abortion, despite what he’s claiming now. On Primary Day, there was a plane with an anti-McCormick banner flying in the western part of the state.

Currently, Pennsylvania has two Democratic Senators, and we need to hold Casey’s seat. The polls have Casey ahead, even Real Clear Politics, which is a Rethuglican operation. While I don’t believe polls are necessarily accurate, if you look at the trend lines, you’ll see that Casey is not only ahead of Dave, but also running ahead of President Biden across the state.

I’m not saying that this cycle will be as easy for Senator Casey as his earlier runs against Rick Santorum, Tom Smith or Lou Barletta, but he should prevail.

I’ll be doing additional “Sunday with the Senator” states in the order that most amuses me. However, if you have a burning desire to learn about the race in a specific state, put it in the comments, and I’ll move it up in the order.

Thanks for reading. Happy Sunday!