© 2024 WFSU Public Media
WFSU News · Tallahassee · Panama City · Thomasville
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

David McCormick ousts Democratic incumbent Bob Casey to win Pennsylvania Senate race

Dave McCormick, Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, arrives to speak at a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pa.
Anna Moneymaker
/
Getty Images
Dave McCormick, Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, arrives to speak at a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pa.

Republican David McCormick has won the Pennsylvania Senate race, defeating the Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey, according to a race call by the Associated Press.

Casey and McCormick waged one of the more negative and personal Senate races of the cycle, with Casey attacking former hedge fund executive McCormick as an out-of-touch carpetbagger for maintaining a residence in Connecticut in addition to his Pennsylvania home.

With McCormick's victory, Republicans have expanded their Senate majority in the next Congress to 53 seats, with two races still to be called.

McCormick was a return candidate. He lost the 2022 GOP Senate primary to celebrity TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, who went on to lose that November. This time, McCormick had no primary challenge and the quick support of Senate Republicans’ campaign operation and President-elect Donald Trump’s early endorsement in the race.

Casey’s ties to the state run much deeper: he’s the son of former senator and governor Bob Casey Sr., and he himself has successfully won statewide elections six times prior to 2024.

While Casey enjoyed early leads in polling for much of the year, the race rapidly tightened in the closing weeks and quickly aligned with the presidential face-off, holding a statistical tie and with an expected outcome unlikely to differentiate from the top of the ticket.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Loading...

Susan Davis is a congressional correspondent for NPR and a co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast. She has covered Congress, elections, and national politics since 2002 for publications including USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal, National Journal and Roll Call. She appears regularly on television and radio outlets to discuss congressional and national politics, and she is a contributor on PBS's Washington Week with Robert Costa. She is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., and a Philadelphia native.