McCormick campaign confident it will flip Casey's U.S. Senate seat to GOP

With no decisive winner called in the tight race for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, David McCormick’s campaign manager said Wednesday he believes the Republican businessman will topple Bob Casey, the incumbent Democrat.

The McCormick camp is banking on capturing the outstanding votes left to count in conservative counties and indicated there are not enough votes left in liberal Philadelphia to offset McCormick’s edge.

McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO from Pittsburgh, has a lead of more than 31,000 votes over Casey, a three-term senator.

Over 97% of the estimated vote was in as of Thursday afternoon, but there are still tens of thousands of uncounted ballots in Cambria, Centre, Chester and Philadelphia counties, as well as an undetermined number of provisional ballots statewide.

While there are no guarantees about how the remaining ballots will break, the McCormick campaign predicted Casey will not find enough votes to overcome his deficit.

Mark Harris, a Pittsburgh-based campaign strategist for the McCormick campaign, posted Wednesday on X that Cambria County is sitting on about 50,000 in-person votes that are overwhelmingly Republican to extend McCormick’s lead.

Harris said there are only about 40,000 votes left in Southeastern Pennsylvania that will skew Democratic.

“Not only can Casey not [catch] McCormick but the odds are McCormick lead will grow in the hours to come,” Harris posted. “This is all over but the official call.”

On Thursday, Maddy McDaniel, a Casey campaign spokeswoman, said the senator has cut into McCormick’s lead, and he will not concede until all votes are counted.

She also noted that the margin between the candidates is currently within 0.5 percentage point. If a gap of that size or smaller remains once all ballots are counted, it would trigger an automatic recount.

“With tens of thousands more votes to be counted, we are committed to ensuring every Pennsylvanian’s vote is heard and confident that at the end of that process, Sen. Casey will be re-elected,” she said.

On Wednesday, the Casey campaign said provisional ballots statewide will need to be counted and they could provide him with a path to victory. There were over 105,000 provisional ballots statewide in 2020.

Allegheny County election officials announced Wednesday they had an estimated 12,680 provisional ballots still to check. Officials also said there were about 3,000 in-person votes left to tabulate in the county.

A McCormick win would only pad the GOP’s margin in the Senate, which the party flipped Tuesday night from Democratic control.

Republicans are projected to win 52 out of 100 seats, with a chance to grow from there and add up to an additional five seats.

McCormick, 59, is seeking his first elected office. The Washington County native who was raised in Bloomsburg, Columbia County, sought to paint Casey as a career politician who was out of touch with everyday Pennsylvanians, and he touted his experience in the Army and running large companies.

Casey, 64, of Scranton, is the son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey Sr. If he loses, it will be the first time Casey has lost a statewide general election race in a 28-year political career. He was first elected to the Senate in 2007 after serving as the state’s treasurer and auditor general.

Regardless of outcome, this year’s Senate race is the closest of Casey’s career — and one of the most expensive nationwide. He won each of his previous Senate races by at least 9 percentage points, and his first by over 17 points, the highest ever for a Pennsylvania Democrat running for the chamber.