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Pen Argyle, Pennsylvania
CNN
—
Sen. Bob Casey is bracing for a Republican onslaught.
After a close summer in which Trump and Republican opponent David McCormick traded fierce attacks in a closely contested U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, Republicans are preparing to spend more than $100 million on television and radio in the final two months of the campaign.
The staggering sum is about $40 million more than Casey and his allies have set aside so far, and gives McCormick the biggest broadcast advantage of any Senate candidate in the final stages of the race. Up until this point, both campaigns had spent roughly the same amount on broadcasting, with Casey holding the edge.
“I think I’m the underdog,” Casey, a three-term incumbent with a long history in Pennsylvania politics, told CNN after a Philadelphia rally with union members. “I think the spending from the corporate super PACs that came in here and started attacking me all summer is going to increase exponentially.”
Casey predicted he would win the November election, claiming he “doesn’t care how much they spend,” but added, “I don’t have a personal super PAC funded by Wall Street billionaires. … It’s going to be a really tough election to win.”
Casey’s comments highlight Democrats’ broader fight to maintain control of the Senate. To keep the Senate 50-50, they need to hold onto every seat except West Virginia, which is all but certain to flip to the Republicans. That means Democrats can’t afford to screw up in Republican states like Pennsylvania, because they have to defend seats in Republican states like Ohio and Montana.
To avoid that outcome, Mr. Casey has launched a barrage of attacks on Mr. McCormick’s character, a tactic Democrats are using to win over swing voters in battleground states across the country. But while Mr. Casey attacks Mr. McCormick’s background running a major Wall Street hedge fund and his history as a Connecticut resident, Republicans and their allies are broadening their campaign nationally, trying to link their opponent to Vice President Kamala Harris, the border and inflation.
“The reason this race is so close is because Senator Casey is out of touch with Pennsylvania,” McCormick said in an interview in the eastern Pennsylvania town where Trump won 60% of the vote in 2020. “He was a weak senator.”
To amplify those attacks, McCormick has something the other candidates don’t: his own super PAC, funded by wealthy donors. In fact, of the $101 million McCormick and his Republican allies plan to spend on airtime, Keystone Renewal PAC has set aside $66 million for the final two months of the campaign, more than the $64 million Casey and his allies have set aside to spend in the same period, according to AdImpact data. The super PAC is funded by billionaire investors like Ken Griffin and Paul Singer, who have donated $10 million and $2 million, respectively, according to federal records.
Mr. McCormick has another advantage: his own deep pockets. Asked whether he plans to put his own money into the race in the final months, Mr. McCormick said, “I’m already a big investor,” pointing to public filings that show he has spent $4 million on the campaign so far.
“I’m going to continue to be an investor and I’m investing in myself because I believe in myself,” McCormick said, “but this is going to be the most expensive race in the country, so I’m going to need a lot of help.”
McCormick added, “I’m running against a long-time, three-term incumbent who is very well-known in Pennsylvania, so I think I’m at a disadvantage.”
The Trump-Harris factor
Both candidates are calculating that it makes political sense to align themselves with their top candidates on the ballot, even if that puts their standard-bearers in a politically difficult position.
McCormick, who has never held public office before, lost the 2022 Senate primary to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, in a race in which the former president repeatedly criticized McCormick.
But McCormick has since reconciled with Trump, winning the former president’s endorsement and working with him at the Republican National Convention and rallies across Pennsylvania. In fact, McCormick was about to take the stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July when Trump told him to wait a bit longer. Moments later, a gunman tried to kill the former president.
“Yes,” McCormick said when asked if he thought he could have been shot at the rally. “I didn’t think about it at the time. Then I went home at night and told all six of my daughters and they were shocked.”
But McCormick’s alliance with Trump has its limits.
Asked whether he believes Trump’s claims that the 2020 Pennsylvania election was stolen, McCormick said he believes Joe Biden was the winner.
“One of the things I’ve said before is President Biden is our president. He won the election. I don’t believe the election was stolen,” McCormick said. “So President Trump and I don’t agree on everything, but we agree on a lot of things.”
When asked if he considered himself a MAGA Republican, McCormick responded, “You know, I consider myself a Dave McCormick Republican. I’ve stated my positions many times. My positions are very much in line with what President Trump has said on policy.”
Casey sees it differently.
“He’s always kowtowing to Trump,” Casey said of McCormick, noting that Trump has attacked him as a “liberal Wall Street Republican” during the 2022 presidential campaign, an issue that has been featured in Democratic attack ads.
But Casey will have to navigate his own top issue: Harris’ more progressive positions. Harris previously supported a ban on the fossil fuel extraction method known as fracking, an issue that has particular resonance in Pennsylvania. Casey has now praised Harris for her change of course, said he will not ban fracking, and spoke alongside Harris and President Joe Biden at a Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh last week.
When asked why he supports Harris when other weak Democrats are shunning her, Casey responded: “Her campaign has already produced a substantial increase in voter turnout in this state. A lot of young voters are more engaged than ever before. She’s run a really strong campaign. I’ve known Harris for a long time as a senator.”
However, he did not call himself a Biden-Harris Democrat, nor did he specify the issues on which he disagrees with the Democratic candidate.
“I’m not going to list issues on which we may not agree entirely,” he said.
Mr. McCormick’s Wall Street success has become a double-edged sword in the campaign as Mr. Casey has launched a series of attacks on his tenure at Bridgewater Associates, particularly his investments in China while he was running the hedge fund.
Between 2017 and 2021, when McCormick was running Bridgewater, the firm’s investments in China increased 108%, including in Chinese companies that legally manufacture fentanyl.
In an interview, McCormick said the company’s total investment in China represents 3% of its global investment strategy and argued that it is normal for such companies to invest in China.
“You have 30 percent of the stuff in your house that was made in China,” he said, arguing that Casey’s record on immigration and border security, not his company’s work, was to blame for the fentanyl crisis. “There’s not a global company in the world that doesn’t have ties to China. And tens of millions of Pennsylvanians, tens of millions of Americans, have investments all over the world, some of which are in China.”
But Casey said 3% was a “ridiculous amount of money.” Asked if he thought the race would depend more on personalities than issues, Casey replied, “Well, I think it depends on what you’ve done in your life. I’ve worked for the people of Pennsylvania. He’s made his money investing in China and working on Wall Street.”
McCormick fired back, saying Casey “doesn’t have the track record to back him in this race” and that Democrats are spending more on attack ads than Casey has in any previous race.
“Senator Casey is scared,” McCormick said.
Democrats are also keen to focus on McCormick’s past comments during the 2022 primary elections, in which he voiced his views on abortion, taking an anti-abortion stance and saying, “I believe that in extremely rare cases, exceptions should be made to protect the life of the mother.”
His remarks have become the centerpiece of Democrats’ multimillion-dollar ad campaign on the issue, because he made no mention of the other two exceptions to abortion — rape and incest.
Asked last week why he focused only on the mother’s life and didn’t make any exceptions for rape or incest, McCormick told CNN: “I said many times before the debate and after the debate that I support all three exceptions. I never said in the debate that I was against the other exceptions. I simply said that I supported that exception.”
But McCormick said he remains opposed to enacting Roe v. Wade into law, saying, “I’m not in favor of this being legislated at the national level,” and arguing that states, not Congress, should set policy.
Though he is a Democrat, Casey has long harbored anti-abortion views: His father, two-term Governor Bob Casey Sr., was a devout Catholic who signed one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws in 1989, leading to a landmark Supreme Court decision; Casey was not even given the opportunity to speak at the 1992 Democratic Convention on the issue.
Then in 2002, when Casey ran unsuccessfully for governor, he made his position clear in a radio interview, saying he had “always been pro-life.”
“My position has always been to support the one exception, which is the mother’s life,” Casey said 22 years ago.
But in an interview last week, Casey suggested his view had changed in the wake of Dobbs, saying he supported “restoring Roe rights.”
When asked if he still considered himself “pro-life,” Casey replied, “I don’t think those words mean much anymore. I really think the choice the American people have to make now is do you support banning — do you support overturning Roe and all that goes with that — or do you support this right, which I support?”
CNN’s David Wright, Morgan Rimmer and Sheden Tesfaldet contributed to this report.