Casey v. McCormick - Part One
The Dilemma of Dave McCormick
Background
Tick tock.
As the 2024 elections draw nearer, Dave McCormick finds himself at the precipice of making a decision - does he run for PA Senate against Bob Casey or sit on the sidelines? It’s quite a dilemma, made all the worse by the various forces pushing and pulling behind the scenes when it comes to making moves in this pivotal swing state.
Frankly? No matter his choice, it may already be too late. By opting to delay his final decision, McCormick cedes considerable ground to Casey, and perhaps even to possible primary opponents should that end up being the case. Time is an enemy to us all, especially in politics.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. It was a big relief to the McCormick camp that Mastriano declined to run, but that does not preclude a lack of opposition. Although the GOP establishment and some potential candidates have pledged to step aside for McCormick should he run, full unity is a difficult concept for some in the party to grasp these days. There are other Republicans who would love to make a bid for Senate, if not for a shared concern amongst all potential candidates - Bob Casey. This thrice-battle-tested, hardened incumbent is practically royalty in Pennsylvania and commands considerable popular and crossover support amongst the electorate, winning by near or double digits in all of his election bids.
Well, and Trump. The former president is also a concern for the Republican nominee who may have to share a ticket with him next year. Pat Toomey was one of the very few people who were able to pull off threading a fine needle to make that kind of win possible, but people like him are no longer palpable with the GOP base, nor is it 2016 any longer. To survive in a Republican primary in Pennsylvania, you’re going to have to go a little hardcore.
So, what does McCormick do? For starters, I would advise him to listen to his wife and children when they, in this video, pleaded with him not to run for Senate in 2022. It should come as no surprise when he ignored the wishes of his family anyway and ended up losing to Mehmet Oz in the May primary and wound up with badly damaged favorables in the process.
Dave, if you’re facing this kind of resistance again, listen to them! But alas. While he withers and takes his time to make a decision, NRSC-backed or grassroots-supported candidates have already declared or are close to declaring in other battleground states with Democratic incumbents such as Ohio, Montana, West Virginia, Nevada, and Arizona.
Yet, Pennsylvania waits with bated breath. This is, in my opinion, less about the NRSC (National Republican Senate Committee) trying to clear the field for McCormick and convincing him to run, but more about the indecision and fear that comes with doing so. Fear is at the root of a lot of things. Bad decisions, financial ruin, impromptu trips to Bali, and what have you. But as I mentioned earlier when it comes to potential candidates, fear is a force to be reckoned with, particularly with McCormick. The reality is that he already lost an election once and faced some setbacks in the process. Should he go through with this again in what is going to be an uphill battle to start, he risks the lights going out on his political career if he loses twice. It doesn’t matter what the NRSC and every McConnell-backed organization under the sun says to him and whatever platitudes they make - this is not West Virginia where a win is either solidly plausible or a cakewalk. They’re asking McCormick to step in the fire for a race with no guarantee of a reward and significant downsides if it goes the other way. That’s not a superbly enticing appeal, I’d say. We already have some solid polling (real polling, mind you), to back that up. Several pollsters have tested a Casey v. McCormick matchup and this is what they found.
Now, these toplines are less about Casey being up or strongly favored and more about how those numbers are entirely predictable and fairly consistent for an incumbent like him at this point in time. What we see now is really not that different from his numbers in prior bids. For instance, the April Franklin and Marshall Poll showing Casey with 42% is actually the same as when they started polling consistently in his 2018 landslide bid (41-44% range) before eventually starting to break closer to 50% in the final months. Look even further back to 2012, when they also had Casey at 42% in June 2012!
Apropos of nothing, the larger point I’m trying to make isn’t about one poll, but rather taking multiple polls in context and making comparisons. You’ll see me pointing out a lot of those parallels as we get closer to next year. Of note: when measuring Casey’s favorables in those polls, including ones not mentioned such as Commonwealth, they all have him with double-digit approvals. It’s a good position for an incumbent to be in and is virtually no change in how the Pennsylvania public has viewed him over the years.
To make a long story short, what we see now is pretty normal and initially tells me that the McCormick of now likely wouldn’t do much better than most of Casey’s prior opponents, absent external factors such as presidental polarization weighed into individual vote shares. He’s certainly not going to do worse or the same as Tom Smith or Lou Barletta, for example. He would do better, but that gap will be defined in the coming year should he run.
The Dilemma
Take that brief overview in mind and let it sink in. You can already understand McCormick’s dilemma. His heart is set on running. He knows he can run. And he’d have institutional support. Maybe not much of a primary challenge either, but we’ll see. And to reinforce that notion, he’s been hiring staffers and attending events in the fashion of someone who has every intention of announcing a bid. He’s made it clear that he’s in no hurry to make a decision, but that’s the problem in the first place. It’s one thing to weigh your options and consider the aforementioned background problems. It’s another to hamper yourself in a race you allegedly want to win when the starting gun’s already been fired.
Listen, I get it. It’s understandable to be cautious and deliberate after what you went through last year, but it’s very easy to take your eye off the ball in politics. And, in my belief, that’s what’s happened here.
Let’s ignore Casey’s favorables and polling for a second. Money will be a big factor in this race. While McCormick has a vast personal fortune as a millionaire, he’s limited by how much he can actually fund himself and how far that money can go. For those who think that he can blunt force his way to success by utilizing his reservoirs of wealth, look no further than Mehmet Oz, who also used considerable sums of his own money and had a similar cash pile only to end up with some of the worst favorables of any Republican candidate in recent memory and lost in a humiliating 5 point blowout to John Fetterman last year.
And above else, Casey is perfectly capable of, and already has, the money needed to give McCormick quite a bruising. The three-term incumbent raised $4 million last quarter, making it his best fundraising quarter ever (and in an off-year, to boot). Additionally, he’s already doubled his fundraising committees over the last month from 3 to 6, expanding the monetary flow through the following groups.
Casey Keystone Victory Fund
Senate PA & NV
Green Senate 2024
Senate PA & WI
Senate Victory 2024
The Liftoff Fund
And this is with a robust grassroots funding operation as well. Democrats have steadily edged out a small dollar donation advantage over the years and Casey is now benefitting from that. Essentially, a year and a half out from the election, he’s already assembling the equivalent of a railgun to match what McCormick can do funding-wise.
So… take your pick of shots. Like Fetterman was able to do to Oz, Casey has the funding to line up an array of attacks against McCormick. Wealthy out of stater, a guy from Connecticut, talking smack about teachers and wanting to destroy public education, selling mansions, his ties to China, a position as a hedge fund CEO, etc. I mean, this is honestly just scratching the surface. There’s a lot more where that came from. McCormick’s spent some of this quiet period before his decision trying to walk back some of those positions and play up his ties to Pennsylvania, which is smart. He’ll have more success than Oz did, but it won’t be as effective as he thinks it’ll be. This is not Casey’s first rodeo, and Democrats just came off of an election cycle where extremely similar attacks worked very well against the Republican nominee.
And that’s without considering the fact that 2024 could see a bluer electorate than 2022, which is a very real and fairly likely possibility. It’s still too early to tell, but even if the electorate would be similar, McCormick would have virtually no shot. I can assure you of that, given my modeling and tracking of what happened with the coalitional breakdown with Fetterman v. Oz. More insight will be available as we get into next year, but I’m sure all of that is in McCormick’s mind too.
And thus his dilemma continues. Really, the biggest argument you can provide in McCormick’s favor for the time being is his supposed moderate credentials, West Point background, and a couple of other personal tidbits. But, compared to Casey, those things aren’t really new nor a contrast to Casey himself, who is widely perceived as reasonable and is extremely difficult to attack on personal characteristics.
Honestly, a couple of months ago, I had slightly different thoughts on the whole situation. But the longer McCormick holds off and the more things become clear, I become further convinced that he would be your standard run-of-the-mill GOP candidate that is only boosted by virtue of a presidential year. He’s not going to magically do better than Oz in suburban PA counties and the verdict is still out on if he can even match Trump in the rurals. Yes, it’s still a long way to go, but this is my initial read on what’s unfolding.
Worry not. I fully expect McCormick to run, as do many insiders and people close to him. But I would be remiss to say that the same was expected of Doug Mastriano. Whatever the decision, there will be a lot driving it. And fingers will be crossed that Trump either stays out of it and/or some souped-up MAGA candidate decides not to run in the primary.
One thing is certain - POTUS at the top of the ticket will by far be the more interesting of the two biggest races to watch on Election Night in Pennsylvania. And somewhere, somehow, Bob Casey will be waiting.