Casey defends seat in Senate
SCRANTON, Pa. — Bob Casey had money and momentum on his side as he rolled to his third U.S. Senate victory Tuesday.
His lead in the polls had been steadily growing all cycle, and he was declared the winner early in the evening.
Mr. Casey, a Democrat who has been a thorn in the president’s side, particularly on judicial nominations, faced one of Donald Trump’s most closely allied lawmakers, Republican U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta of Hazleton. Libertarian Dale Kerns and Green Party candidate Neal Gale also ran.
Mr. Barletta said he called Mr. Casey to congratulate him and hoped Mr. Casey would “work with President Trump for the good of the American people. I’m sure he will.” He said Mr. Casey would “serve the people of Pennsylvania as he always has.”
In a gracious concession speech at The Pines restaurant in Hazleton, Mr. Barletta thanked his volunteers, his supporters, his family and the president.
“I can look myself in the mirror and still stand proud,” he told the crowd. “Trust me, we’re going to come together as a state. We’re going to come together as a country. Sen. Casey is going to represent Pennsylvania well and we’re going to
move forward from here.”
Supporters of Mr. Casey, 58, celebrated his win at the Scranton Cultural Center not far from his home, with his wife, Terese.
Mr. Casey saw his win as “a victory for people across our commonwealth who want a new direction in Washington, and a triumph for people are really concerned about their health care.”
In a forward-looking speech, he thanked supporters but told them there is much work left to do. He called for his congressional colleagues to come together to raise wages, invest in infrastructure, expand broadband access to rural areas, providemore substantial tax relief to the middle class, lift children out of poverty, expand early childhood education, and help the disabled.
“In the years ahead, our nation will confront many challenges, but we must also seize opportunities, and I think there are many opportunities to make our nation more perfect and to advance the cause of justice,” Mr. Casey said.
To those who say the agenda is too ambitious, he said he responds: “We’re the strongest country in the world. … We build in America. We innovate. We invest. We invest in the future, and we advance the cause of justice when we are at our best.”
Several political science students from Keystone College in LaPlume, Pa., attended with their professor Jeff Brauer, who offered an on-the-spot analysis of the race.
“Bob Casey is somebody who has always appealed across party lines and he’s become more comfortable in his own skin, taking on more liberal stances in the last two years. He’s somebody that blue-collar voters can relate to,” Mr. Brauer said. “He has such wide appeal that I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of Trump voters came over to Casey.”
Mr. Casey saw the potential to attract them, so he invested in campaign ads that highlighted his support of the president’s approach to trade policy, he said.
For Mr. Barletta, there was little room to attract Democrats. On top of that, he was unable to hold together the coalition Mr. Trump built in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Barletta was first elected to Congress in 2010, catapulted by his efforts to combat illegal immigrants while serving as mayor of the small northeastern city of Hazleton.
Mr. Trump asked Mr. Barletta to run, and Mr. Barletta campaigned on Mr. Trump’s policies and record, particularly immigration, where their views dovetailed.
But Mr. Barletta failed to reconstruct the coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats that had helped Mr. Trump become the first Republican presidential candidate to win Pennsylvania since 1988.
The final weeks of the campaign were trying for Mr. Barletta. His 18-monthold grandson, a twin, was diagnosed with cancer and his brother died. In the midst of this, Mr. Casey launched a series of statewide TV ads accusing Mr. Barletta of voting in Congress to let insurers strip coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Mr. Barletta cried foul, saying an ad featuring a woman whose twin daughters were diagnosed with cancer was cruel to his family because it mirrored his grandson’s plight.
Mr. Casey apologized if the ad had caused Mr. Barletta and his family any pain. Any similarity had been unintended, Mr. Casey said, and the campaign took down the ad in the Scranton TV market. But Mr. Casey declined Mr. Barletta’s request to take down the ad in the rest of the state and his campaign said flatly that Mr. Barletta “will be held accountable” for his votes.
At Mr. Casey’s after-election event, Riaz Hussain and his wife, Atiya, were among the revelers. They live in the senator’s neighborhood and have known him most of his life. They said they support him because he is accomplished and because his views on immigration differ from Mr. Barletta’s.
“Lou Barletta is prejudiced and shortsighted,” Mr. Hussain said as votes were still being counted. “He is in the same image of the president, and if he loses, the policies of Donald Trump are also invalidated in this area.”
Political scientists expected Mr. Casey to prevail, especially in a midterm year when the party of the president almost always struggles.
The pro-life Democrat’s victory came in a state that Mr. Trump carried — albeit by less than 1 percentage point — in 2016. It’s also a state the president was invested in. He visited six times, sent family members four times and sent Vice President Mike Pence twice.
A Barletta victory would have been a trophy for Mr. Trump. Instead the results sent a clear message that Pennsylvanians, who gave him 20 electoral votes two years ago, have grown wary.
Mr. Casey also was helped by statewide name recognition and a campaign war chest that grew to $20.8 million in a cycle when his opponent raised $6.7 million.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Casey hit Mr. Barletta and his fellow Republicans for their efforts to roll back health insurance protections and for their tax plan that helps corporations and the wealthy but offers only small temporary relief to the middle class.
He stayed on message even as Mr. Trump shifted the national conversation to immigration — a topic smack in the middle of Mr. Barletta’s wheelhouse. As mayor of Hazleton, Mr. Barletta pushed through the first ordinances of their kind in the country — ordinances that imposed fines on landlords who housed undocumented immigrants or employers who hired them.
Mr. Casey has been in politics most of his life, as the son of the late Gov. Robert Casey Sr., as state auditor general, as state treasurer and — since his 2006 trouncing of powerhouse Republican Rick Santorum — as U.S. senator.
That year, too, was a referendum on an unpopular Republican president – George W. Bush, whose popularity had sunk after his handling of Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq.
“Casey benefited from another great cycle against a candidate that is easy to target. Santorum was an easy mark for a moderate candidate like Casey in an anti-Republican year … and he had another great matchup this time in a candidate that was tied to an unpopular president more so than almost any other person on the ballot,” said Chris Borick, political scientist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.
In both elections, dissatisfaction with the president gave Mr. Casey an easier path to re-election than he otherwise would have had, Mr. Borick said.
“He doesn’t want to see the president’s agenda move forward, and he’s been able to find that voice and reach people in Pennsylvania who are aligned with his views, but in terms of blocking the president’s agenda there’s been limited success,” Mr. Borick said.