EXCLUSIVE — The campaign of Republican David McCormick is publicly acknowledging what every recent poll has found on the Pennsylvania Senate race.
He is behind the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Bob Casey, in a hypothetical general election matchup.
But in a memo released by the McCormick campaign on Monday, his pollsters lay out a path to defeating the three-term senator, one that taps into voter dissatisfaction with Washington and McCormick’s own background as a military veteran and businessman.
Casey leads McCormick 47% to 40%, according to the memo, first obtained by the Washington Examiner, while another 12% of respondents are undecided.
The 7-point gap is roughly in line with other recent surveys of the Senate race. The RealClearPolitics average finds McCormick behind by 9 points.
The memo attributes that spread to his lack of name recognition in the state, however, and predicts McCormick can win the undecided vote, and the messaging war, as he and Casey spend millions to define each other in the coming months.
“Dave McCormick’s background as a combat veteran and successful businessman offer the perfect contrast to career politician Bob Casey and his long record of making life more difficult and less safe for Pennsylvanians,” the memo says. “Add in a favorable environment for Republicans in the state, and Dave McCormick is well positioned to win in November.”
The pollsters found almost 7 in 10 voters “have either never heard of or do not have an opinion of” McCormick, an ex-hedge fund CEO who narrowly lost the GOP primary for Senate in 2022.
Meanwhile, the Casey name is well established in Pennsylvania politics. Casey’s father served two terms as governor, and Casey himself has held statewide office for almost 30 years, including three terms in the Senate.
Time and again, Casey has won election to the upper chamber by no fewer than 9 percentage points. That margin was 13 points in his 2018 matchup against Republican Lou Barletta.
But political handicappers expect a close contest in 2024 that, while it leans Democratic, is very much in play. Both Casey and McCormick, backed by party leadership in Washington, are expected to sail through their respective primaries in April before facing off in one of the most consequential races on the 2024 map in November.
In part, the McCormick camp is betting that President Joe Biden will hurt Casey down the ballot. Biden heads into an election year with 59% of likely Pennsylvania voters disapproving of his job performance, according to McCormick’s pollsters.
The most recent surveys show Pennsylvania is a toss-up for Biden against his likely challenger, former President Donald Trump — as it was the last two presidential cycles — but the McCormick memo has a more bleak assessment. The president trails Trump 42% to 48% in the state.
The memo also makes the case that McCormick will beat Casey in his own right once voters become familiar with him.
The 12% of undecided voters are “disproportionately” Republican, it says, supporting Trump by a 2-to-1 margin. Moreover, the poll, conducted Jan. 22-25 among 800 likely Pennsylvania voters, finds that McCormick receives majority support when respondents are given a “neutral” description of each candidate.
McCormick is described as an Army veteran and political outsider who vows to “secure the southern border” and “bring jobs back to America from China.” Casey, meanwhile, is described as the state’s senior senator running to “stand up to greedy corporate interests” and “protect democracy.”
The challenge, of course, is winning the messaging war. McCormick raised $5.4 million in the fourth quarter, lending his campaign an additional million. Casey, for his part, had a hefty, $9 million war chest heading into 2024.
That’s to say nothing of the tens of millions in outside spending that can be expected in the race.
The Casey campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but Democrats are already labeling McCormick a carpet-bagger, as they did to Mehmet Oz, Republicans’ 2022 Senate candidate.
McCormick has far deeper roots in the state than New Jersey’s Oz. He stressed that he is a seventh-generation Pennsylvanian in announcing his candidacy in September. But McCormick’s years spent in Connecticut as a wealthy financier could prove a liability to him in the race.
The issue of abortion will also feature prominently, with Democrats attempting to link him to Republicans in favor of a federal ban. McCormick’s campaign has previously said he is “pro-life” and supports exceptions for “rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother.”
The polling memo lays out the lines of attack Casey can expect from Republicans.
The pollsters make the case that one of Casey’s biggest advantages, incumbency, is actually a liability, arguing he’s failed to do much of consequence in the Senate, and the votes he has taken have been harmful to Pennsylvanians.
But it also takes that argument a step further. Citing the 35% of voters who “either have never heard of or do not have an opinion of” Casey, the pollsters make the striking claim that the “race is more like an open seat than a race against an entrenched incumbent.”
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“In both our survey and in focus groups, voters struggle to identify a single issue or
accomplishment they associate with Casey other than he is the incumbent Democratic Senator,” reads the memo. “Even voters’ recall of Casey’s father as Governor is a very distant, foggy memory.”
Ultimately, the pollsters say Casey will be “whipsawed” by three factors: the low profile he has kept in the Senate, his voting record, and voters’ “desire for change.”
Pennsylvania Survey Memo by web-producers on Scribd
