Republican Dave McCormick won a Senate race in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday, denying Democratic incumbent Bob Casey a fourth term and expanding the party’s majority in the Senate.
When the Associated Press called the election results at 4:09 p.m. ET on Thursday, two days after Pennsylvania polls closed, McCormick led by 0.4 percentage points. Although his victory is expected to hold with a lead of about 30,000 votes, the narrow margin raises the possibility of a recount.
Casey’s spokesman insisted thousands of votes had not yet been counted and refused to admit McCormick lost the race.
“As the Pennsylvania Secretary of State stated this afternoon, tens of thousands of ballots remain to be counted across the Commonwealth, including provisional, military and overseas ballots, and mail-in ballots,” Casey spokesperson Maddy McDaniel said in a statement. “With only half a point left in this race, no results can be announced while thousands of Pennsylvanians’ votes are still being counted. We will make sure every Pennsylvanian’s voice is heard.”
With McCormick’s victory, Republicans now have at least 53 seats in the Senate, erasing the Democrats’ previous majority in the Senate. As of Thursday afternoon, the two Senate races in Nevada and Arizona remained too close to call.
Despite Casey’s poor performance, he performed better than Kamala Harris, who lost Pennsylvania by two points to Donald Trump. Trump also won two other “blue wall” states, Michigan and Wisconsin, but Democrats managed to retain two Senate seats in those states.
The call in Pennsylvania ended a contentious and expensive Senate race in which the two candidates launched a vitriolic attack on the cost of living, abortion access and McCormick’s recent residency in Connecticut. Casey attacked former hedge fund executive McCormick as out of touch, while McCormick linked Casey to the Biden administration’s “reckless” government spending.
During last month’s debate, Casey mocked McCormick as being “bought and paid off by these billionaires and corporations.” McCormick fired back: “When you don’t have a record to continue running, and Sen. Casey doesn’t, you attack your opponent.”
The high stakes of the race have made it one of the most expensive Senate races in the country, as campaigns and their allies have spent more than $300 million on advertising. Keystone Renewal Pac, a group that supports McCormick, spent at least $54 million on the campaign, making the group the highest-spending single candidate Pac in a Senate race this election cycle.
Most public polls in the race had Casey leading by a few points until recent weeks, when McCormick narrowed the gap to just a few points. Despite this trend, Casey appeared to be in slightly stronger position than Harris until Election Day, when Harris was running neck-and-neck with Trump in Pennsylvania. Leaders of both parties view Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes as a potential turning point in the presidential race.
“I think the two races are going to be very close, but I think the people of our state know it’s a very, very clear choice,” Casey told the Guardian in September. “This has never been clearer.”
On the eve of Election Day, Democrats held a 51-49 majority in the Senate. Republican victories in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia already guarantee control of the Senate, but a victory for McCormick will give the party more leverage when the new Congress takes office in January to set Trump’s agenda.
Read more from The Guardian on the 2024 US election
