Three weeks before their party’s primaries even pick the nominees, the leading candidates for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania are already running TV ads targeting their November opponents.
Republican Dave McCormick’s campaign is airing an ad called “Wrestling.”
The ad highlights the Republican’s time on the Bloomsburg Area High School wrestling team. He was co-captain when the Columbia County team came in fourth place in the state and was a PIAA District 4 champion. He went on to wrestle at West Point, where he was co-captain of the Army Wrestling Team, and twice qualified for the NCAA Division I Tournament.
“Pennsylvania wrestling taught me to do the hard thing. Hard work. Hard choices. The Pennsylvania way. That’s not what we get from Washington. The career politicians don’t do the hard work. They’re selfish and soft,” McCormick says into the camera.
McCormick’s all-but-certain opponent, three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr., has an ad called “Stench.” It talks about veterans who were exposed to burn pits, mainly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and may have developed health problems from them. Casey helped pass the bipartisan Burn Pits Bill to make the Veterans Administration pay for their care.
He followed that up with “Fleeced,” which blames big corporations for “greedflation.” In the ad, Casey says he plans to give the Federal Trade Commission “the power to punish corporate price-gouging.” He also wants to “roll back their huge corporate tax breaks, putting money in your pocket instead.”
Casey is a native of Scranton (like fellow Democrat Joe Biden) and the son of a former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey Sr.
Casey ran for treasurer in 2004, then used the statewide office as a platform to defeat incumbent Republican Rick Santorum in 2006. He’s the first Pennsylvania Democrat to win three terms in the U.S. Senate.
Casey chairs the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging, as well as serving on the Finance, Intelligence and HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) committees.
McCormick served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He was deployed to the Middle East during the First Gulf War and received the Bronze Star for his service in Iraq before retiring as a captain. After leaving the Army, McCormick, 58, earned a Ph.D. in international affairs at Princeton. He then joined and led a successful tech business in Pittsburgh before taking positions in the George W. Bush administration.
He served as the U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs, on the National Security Council, and in the Department of Commerce. McCormick was CEO and president of two publicly traded software companies and a consultant at McKinsey & Co.
He was the CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, before jumping into politics in 2022. At that time, he told DVJournal that he was inspired to run for office after President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, where 13 service members and numerous Afghan people lost their lives.
He ran for Senate and lost the primary by fewer than 1,000 votes to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who went on to lose to now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
Please follow DVJournal on social media: Twitter@DVJournal or Facebook.com/DelawareValleyJournal
