Senate race too close to call
HARRISBURG (AP) — Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race between three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick will help determine control of the chamber in a battleground state contest that was one of the nation's most expensive this year.
As of Tuesday night, the race was too close to call, with McCormick leading Casey.
According to the latest results, with 81% of the precincts reporting, McCormick had 49.8%, or 2,812,077 votes, to Casey's 2,692,900 votes, or 47.7%.
Casey, perhaps Pennsylvania's best-known politician and the son of a former two-term governor, is seeking a fourth term after facing what he has called his toughest re-election challenge yet. Casey, 64, is a stalwart of the state's Democratic Party, having won six statewide elections going back to 1996, including serving as the state's auditor general and treasurer.
McCormick, 59, is making his second run for the Senate after losing narrowly to Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022's Republican primary. He left his job as CEO of the world's largest hedge fund to run after serving at the highest levels of former President George W. Bush's administration and sitting on Trump's Defense Advisory Board.
The race ran on national themes, from abortion rights to inflation. But it also turned on local ones, too, such as Casey's accusation that McCormick is a rich carpetbagger from Connecticut's ritzy "Gold Coast" trying to buy Pennsylvania's Senate seat.
Casey also attacked McCormick's hedge fund days, accusing him of getting rich at America's expense by investing in Chinese companies that make fentanyl and built Beijing's military.
McCormick, in turn, stressed his seventh-generation roots in Pennsylvania, talked up his high school days wrestling in towns across northern Pennsylvania — a sport that took him to the U.S. military academy at West Point — and his time running online auction house FreeMarkets Inc., which had its name on a skyscraper in Pittsburgh during the tech boom.
Casey, a staunch ally of labor unions and President Joe Biden, has campaigned on preserving the middle class, abortion rights, labor rights and voting rights, calling McCormick and former President Donald Trump a threat to all those.
McCormick, in turn, accused Casey of rubber-stamping Biden administration policies on the border, the economy, energy and national security that he blames for inflation, domestic turmoil and war. He has attacked Casey as a weak, out-of-touch career politician and a sure bet to fall in line with Vice President Kamala Harris if she becomes president.
Going into Tuesday's election, Democrats held a Senate majority by the narrowest of margins, although as of late Tuesday evening, Republicans had flipped two seats, with Bernie Moreno defeating Ohio incumbent Sherrod Brown and Jim Justice claiming Sen. Joe Manchin's seat in West Virginia.
