The Keystone State is the key to winning the presidential election. And Bucks County may well be the key to winning Pennsylvania.
That was the message Saturday evening in Newtown as supporters gathered for a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) rally for Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick, with guest U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).
“This is the campaign we’ll never forget,” said Pat Poprik, Bucks County GOP chair. The candidates, former President Donald Trump, McCormick, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick “are all working so hard. But it’s all down to us.”
She asked people to make phone calls, man the polls and talk to their friends about why they should vote for Republicans. Bucks County is on all the television stations and news outlets across the country.
“They’re all watching us,” said Poprik. “And there’s a reason. We deliver. When the going gets tough, you want Bucks at your back.”
Pennsylvania GOP Chair Lawrence Tabas called on Republicans to “do like the Eagles do and give [McCormick] the tush push and get him over the goal line on Nov. 5.”
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
“It’s no coincidence we are the Keystone State,” said Tabas. “It’s clear we are the key state.” Tabas noted Republicans have improved their voter registration numbers in the commonwealth. Five years ago, when he was elected state chair, the Democrats’ registration edge was more than 815,000. Now it’s down to 281,091.
“The voters in Pennsylvania have lost confidence in the Democrats when you see that kind of shift,” said Tabas. And Democrats’ mail-in ballots this fall are down by 700,000 from 2020, he said.
Dina Powell McCormick introduced Donalds, saying they both benefited from a Catholic education. Donalds was raised by a single mother in Brooklyn “with the values of our country,” she said.
Donalds said he was in Pennsylvania to do everything possible to turn out voters to make McCormick the next senator and Trump the next president.
“Dave is fantastic. A businessman. He’s done it in his life. Raising children. His wife, Dina, is amazing. [Washington, D.C.] needs people like Dave. Somebody who has built his life,” said Donalds. “Somebody who did not rely on Washington to do everything for him. He did it for himself. And you need that kind of tenacity. You need that mindset. You need that intellect in the halls of Washington.
“Compare that with your current senator,” said Donalds. “You have one. But nobody’s ever seen him. I’ve seen a lot of the other members. I’m what you call one of the more outgoing members. I meet and see everybody. If I haven’t seen you, you’ve got a problem. Pennsylvania, let me tell you the first time I ever saw what Bob Casey looked like was from a TV ad. That’s a problem.”
“He’s been playing the game of sitting back, following the leadership, not making any waves, not doing anything of substance. And then coming back here every six years and lying to you, saying that he’s fighting for you.
“He was one of the key votes in passing the bill that started inflation which has hurt all of you,” said Donalds. “He voted for the very inflation that has hurt your pocketbooks.”
McCormick took the stage to cheers and applause.
“What happens in Bucks County is going to determine who is the next president,” said McCormick. “We’ve got to change things.
“Can you think of another election in your lifetime where the consequences of getting it wrong seem so big? Where having the wrong leaders in place will take our country over the cliff, will take us to a point where we wake up and don’t recognize the America, we all love?
“It could not be more important,” he said. “The choice couldn’t be more clear.”
“At the top of the ticket, the choice between strength, that guy you saw on the stage at Butler, I was standing right there– ‘Fight, fight, fight’–against weakness,” McCormick said. Casey votes 98.6 percent of the time with the Biden-Harris administration “for that weakness.”
Voters have a choice between commonsense not to spend so much to drive up inflation and to unlock our energy sector, he said.
“We’re standing on top of the fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world. It’s great for our economy. It’s great for our security. Right here in Pennsylvania.”
“It’s commonsense we’ve got to secure our border and stop this scourge of fentanyl that kills 4,000 Pennsylvanians a year,” he said. “And the only way to have peace is have strength.”
On the other side is “a radical, liberal San Francisco agenda,” said McCormick. “Just listen to Kamala Harris in her own words. She wants to ban fracking. She wants to have mandatory buybacks of your guns. She wants to legalize the 11 million illegal immigrants and make sure they get federal benefits. She wants to eliminate your private health insurance. She wants to defund the police. And this is the one that ticks off my friends in Bloomsburg [his hometown], she wants to reduce your red meat consumption.
“This political stuff is a team sport and we need to have leadership up and down the ticket, not just President Trump, all these officials that are running,” said McCormick. “And President Trump needs a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate to get these commonsense policies in place.”
Casey has been in elected office for 30 years, 18 of them in the Senate.
“It is time for change,” he said. “Someone asked me very innocently, ‘Are you running for the Casey seat?’ and I said, ‘I’m not running for the Casey seat. You don’t get to have a seat because you’re from a political dynasty. No. This is the people’s seat.’”
Powell McCormick said, “People sometimes ask me about Dave, what made him strong? Was it wrestling, going to West Point, serving in the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq?…But the thing that has tested my husband more than anything in the world is having six daughters [between them]. And they have tested that man more than you can imagine. And there’s three things those girls know. First, he loves them unconditionally. Second, he supports anything that they want to do. And the third, because he’s proven it over many years is, he has never let them down.”
“That’s how he feels about our country. He loves her unconditionally. He has served her with all his heart. And he will never let Pennsylvania or America down.”
