For extra on CNN’s protection of the US Senate race in Pennsylvania, watch CNN’s “Inside Politics with Manu Raju” on Sunday at 8 a.m. ET and 11 a.m. ET.
Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania
CNN
—
Sen. Bob Casey is bracing for a GOP onslaught.
After a summer time the place he and his GOP opponent, David McCormick, have engaged in a brutal change of assaults within the marquee US Senate race in Pennsylvania, leaving the race in a lifeless warmth, Republicans are making ready to drop greater than $100 million throughout the airwaves within the remaining two months of the marketing campaign.
The staggering sum, which accounts to roughly $40 million greater than Casey and his allies are making ready up to now, offers McCormick the most important edge on the airwaves of any Senate candidate within the marketing campaign’s house stretch. Up till this level, either side had spent comparable ranges on air, with Casey holding the benefit.
“I believe I’m the underdog,” Casey, a three-term incumbent with an extended historical past in Pennsylvania politics, instructed CNN after a Philadelphia rally with union staff. “These company tremendous PACs which are coming in right here, which have already begun to assault me all summer time lengthy, these expenditures are going to go up exponentially.”
Whereas Casey nonetheless predicted he would pull off a November victory and contended that he didn’t “care what they spend,” he mentioned: “I don’t have a private tremendous PAC funded by Wall Road billionaires. … It’s going to be a extremely tough race to win.”
Casey’s feedback underscore the bigger Democratic wrestle to maintain management of the Senate. They should maintain all their seats – apart from West Virginia, which is sort of sure to flip to the GOP – to be able to merely hold a 50-50 Senate. And meaning Democrats can’t afford a slip-up in a purple state like Pennsylvania, given they already must defend seats in pink states like Ohio and Montana.
To keep away from that final result, Casey has been launching a barrage of assaults going after McCormick’s character – a tactic Democrats are utilizing in swing states throughout the nation in an effort to courtroom split-ticket voters. However as Casey assaults McCormick’s tenure working a significant Wall Road hedge fund, and his previous residency in Connecticut, the Republican and his allies are in search of to nationalize the race and tie their foe to Vice President Kamala Harris, the border and inflation.
“The rationale the race is closing is that Sen. Casey is simply out of contact with Pennsylvania,” McCormick mentioned in an interview right here in an jap Pennsylvania city the place Trump received 60% of the vote in 2020. “He’s been a weak senator.”
To amplify these assaults, McCormick is benefiting from one thing different candidates lack: His personal tremendous PAC funded by well-heeled donors. Certainly, of the $101 million McCormick and his GOP allies plan to spend on the air, the Keystone Renewal PAC has reserved $66 million within the remaining two months of the marketing campaign – greater than the $64 million Casey and his allies are reserving to spend throughout that very same timeframe, in response to AdImpact information. That tremendous PAC has been bankrolled by billionaire financiers like Ken Griffin and Paul Singer, who’ve donated $10 million and $2 million, respectively, in response to federal information.
And McCormick has one other profit: His personal deep pockets. Requested if he would pump his personal money into the marketing campaign within the remaining months, McCormick famous he’s “already been an enormous investor,” pointing to public filings that present he spent $4 million up to now on his marketing campaign.
“I anticipate to proceed to be an investor, and I consider in me. So I’m investing in me,” McCormick mentioned. “However this would be the most costly race within the nation. And so I’m going to wish a lot of assist.”
McCormick added: “I’m working towards a three-term incumbent that’s been round for a very long time. He’s a really massive identify in Pennsylvania. So I believe I’m the underdog.”
The Trump and Harris issue
Each candidates have calculated that it is sensible politically to align themselves with the highest of their tickets, even when a few of their normal bearer’s positions put them in a tough political spot.
McCormick, who has by no means held elected workplace earlier than, misplaced the 2022 Senate main to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who Donald Trump backed, in a fiercely contested race the place the previous president repeatedly berated McCormick.
However McCormick has since made amends with Trump, successful the previous president’s backing and stumping with Trump on the Republican Nationwide Conference and at stops all through Pennsylvania. Certainly, McCormick was about to take the stage on the July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Trump instructed him to attend again one other second. Moments later, a gunman tried to kill the previous president.
“Yeah,” McCormick mentioned when requested right here if he thinks it may have been him shot at throughout the rally. “I didn’t suppose on the time. Then, I received house at night time and talked to all six of my daughters, and so they had been freaked out.”
But McCormick’s alliance with Trump has some limits.
Requested if he believed Trump’s claims that the 2020 Pennsylvania election was stolen, McCormick mentioned he believed Joe Biden was the winner.
“One of many issues I had mentioned earlier than was that President Biden was our president. He had received the election. I don’t consider the election was stolen,” McCormick mentioned. “So President Trump and I don’t agree on every part, however we agree on a variety of issues.”
Requested if he thought of himself a MAGA Republican, McCormick mentioned: “You recognize, I contemplate myself a Dave McCormick Republican. I’ve repeatedly, laid out my positions. My positions are very a lot in keeping with what President Trump has mentioned on insurance policies.”
Casey sees it otherwise.
“He’s genuflecting to Trump on a regular basis,” Casey mentioned of McCormick, stating that Trump attacked him as a “liberal Wall Road Republican” throughout the 2022 marketing campaign, a problem spotlighted in Democratic assault advertisements.
But, Casey has to navigate his personal top-of-the-ticket points – particularly Harris’ extra progressive positions, together with her earlier help for banning the fossil-fuel extraction procedure known as fracking, a problem that carries explicit resonance in Pennsylvania. Casey is now applauding Harris’ reversal – she now says she wouldn’t ban fracking – and appeared together with her and President Joe Biden on the stump eventually week’s Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh.
Requested why he’s aligning himself with Harris, as different weak Democrats have shied away from her, Casey mentioned: “Look, on this state, her marketing campaign already has introduced an actual carry to the turnout dynamics. A number of younger voters are extra engaged now than they had been. She’s working a extremely robust marketing campaign. I’ve recognized her a very long time within the Senate.”
However he wouldn’t name himself a Biden-Harris Democrat, nor would he spell out the problems the place he diverges from the Democratic nominee.
“I’m not going to attempt to itemize points that we would haven’t whole settlement on,” he mentioned.
McCormick’s success on Wall Road has develop into a double-edged sword within the race, as Casey launches an array of assaults on his tenure at Bridgewater Associates – notably its investments in China whereas he ran the hedge fund.
From 2017-2021 – the interval that McCormick ran Bridgewater – the company’s investments in China grew by 108%, together with investing in a Chinese language agency legally producing fentanyl.
Within the interview, McCormick mentioned that his firm’s total funding in China amounted to three% of the agency’s world funding technique, arguing it’s frequent for any such firm to put money into China.
“You may have 30% of issues in your house which are from China,” he mentioned, arguing that Casey’s document on immigration and border safety is a cause for the fentanyl disaster quite than his firm’s work. “There’s no world agency on the earth that that doesn’t have publicity to China. And tens of thousands and thousands of Pennsylvanians, tens of thousands and thousands of Individuals have investments throughout the globe, a few of that are in China.”
However Casey mentioned 3% is “a hell of some huge cash.” Requested if he sees the race turning on character, greater than the problems, Casey mentioned: “Effectively, I believe it can activate what you’ve achieved along with your life. … So I’ve been working for the folks in Pennsylvania. He’s been being profitable investing in China and engaged on Wall Road. “
McCormick shot again, saying Casey “doesn’t have a document to run on,” noting that the Democrat’s marketing campaign spent extra on assault advertisements than he has up to now within the marketing campaign.
“Sen. Casey is working scared,” McCormick mentioned.
Democrats have additionally been desperate to highlight previous feedback McCormick made within the 2022 main. Certainly, when he was on the talk stage in 2022, he specified his view on abortion, indicating he opposed the process, noting: “I consider within the very uncommon situations there must be exceptions for lifetime of the mom.”
Since he didn’t point out two different abortion exceptions – for rape and incest – that remark has been the centerpiece of a multimillion greenback Democratic advert marketing campaign on the difficulty.
Requested final week why he solely singled out lifetime of the mom, and never an exception for rape or incest, McCormick instructed CNN: “I mentioned earlier than the talk, after the talk again and again that I help all three exceptions. Within the debate, I didn’t say I used to be towards the opposite exceptions. I merely mentioned that I used to be for that exception.”
However McCormick, who mentioned he nonetheless opposes codifying Roe v. Wade, mentioned he’s “not in favor of nationwide laws” and that the states ought to determine their insurance policies quite than Congress.
Casey additionally has lengthy harbored anti-abortion views regardless of being a Democrat – and is the son of a two-term governor, Bob Casey Sr., a staunch Catholic who signed one of the stringent abortion legal guidelines within the nation in 1989, resulting in a landmark Supreme Courtroom determination. The elder Casey was even denied a talking slot within the 1992 Democratic conference over the difficulty.
And in 2002, when the youthful Casey mounted an unsuccessful bid for governor, he made his place clear, saying in a radio interview on the time that his view has “all the time been a pro-life place.”
“My place has all the time been favoring the one exception – for the lifetime of the mom,” Casey mentioned 22 years in the past.
However within the interview final week, Casey urged that his view has modified within the aftermath of the Dobbs determination, saying that he helps “restoring the rights of Roe.”
Requested if he nonetheless considers himself to be “pro-life,” Casey mentioned: “I don’t suppose these phrases imply a lot anymore. I actually suppose that the selection now earlier than the American folks is for those who help a ban, which suggests you help the overturning of Roe and all that comes with it, otherwise you help this proper, which I do.”
CNN’s David Wright, Morgan Rimmer and Sheden Tesfaldet contributed to this report.