McCormick launches 2024 Pa. Senate campaign in Pittsburgh
Republican David McCormick announced his entry into Pennsylvania’s 2024 U.S. Senate race on Thursday, challenging threeterm Democratic Sen. Bob Casey with a hefty bankroll and broad GOP support following last year’s narrow primary loss.
A former hedge fund CEO and Army veteran who grew up in the Pittsburgh area, McCormick, 58, launched his campaign during an evening event at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.
“Sadly the America we know is slipping away,” McCormick said. “Under the failed leadership of Joe Biden, America is in decline, economically, militarily, spiritually. You see it, you know it, you feel it. I’m here to tell you tonight It doesn’t have to be that way.”
The wealthy businessman’s second attempt to represent the Keystone State follows a book tour and meetings and events with GOP leaders and donors across Pennsylvania.
Republicans ranging from county party chairs to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have urged McCormick to take on Casey as the battle lines for control of the chamber run through Pennsylvania.
“It’s going to be a very loud [race],” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist and ad maker in Philadelphia. “This will be a high-spending, high-communication campaign that will dominate the airwaves and political talk for months.”
McCormick’s rally Thursday came less than a year after celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who beat McCormick in the 2022 Republican Senate primary, lost the general election to Democrat John Fetterman. Oz, buoyed by an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, beat McCormick by less than 1,000 votes.
This time, the primary field is clear for McCormick — at least so far. No other Republican has entered the race, and a potential rival on McCormick’s right flank, state Sen. Doug Mastriano,
said earlier this year that he wouldn’t run.
Following Mastriano’s announcement, Mr. McCormick said he was “seriously considering” a run “because Bob Casey has consistently made life worse for Pennsylvania families over the past 18 years” — citing the incumbent’s support for President Joe Biden and attacking him on immigration and energy.
Vince Galko, a Republican
consultant in Northeastern Pennsylvania, said McCormick “will have the resources and party support,” and can go after independent and swing voters without having to worry about playing to far-right elements of the GOP base.
Before becoming CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, McCormick served in the first Gulf War, was under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs in the George W. Bush administration, and was a consultant at McKinsey & Co. in Pittsburgh.
In his book released this year, McCormick argues that the chasm between the Democratic and Republican parties has left voters and their needs behind. He said he applauded Trump’s “America First” policies, but suggested the former president fell short when it came to actually advancing a conservative agenda.
“To save our republic,” he wrote, “we need a vision for how we will address the immense problems before us, and we need leaders who can unite our country around that vision.”
Democrats went on the offensive against McCormick before he entered the race, raising questions about his residency and likening him to Oz, who moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey to run for Senate. While McCormick owns a Pittsburgh home and a family farm near Bloomsburg, news reports have noted how much time McCormick spends in his rented $16 million mansion in Westport, Conn. He lived on Connecticut’s wealthy “Gold Coast” for years before returning to Pennsylvania shortly before launching his 2022 campaign.
On Thursday, a plane circled downtown towing a banner saying, “Welcome to Pennsylvania, Dave.”
Democrats also have hit McCormick over his opposition to abortion rights, which proved to be a winning issue for them in the last election.
Republicans have painted Casey, the son of a former governor, as a decades-long politician, and accused his family of profiting from his position.
To beat Casey — a former state treasurer and auditor general who’s won three Senate races by at least nine percentage points — McCormick’s team must “make sure this is a referendum on Casey and not a proxy battle for Biden-Trump,” Galko said.