GOP plots Pennsylvania onslaught as Democrats battle to keep ‘really difficult’ Senate seat

For more on CNN’s coverage of the US Senate race in Pennsylvania, watch CNN’s “Inside Politics with Manu Raju” on Sunday at 8 a.m. ET and 11 a.m. ET.

Sen. Bob Casey is bracing for a GOP onslaught.

After a summer where he and his GOP opponent, David McCormick, have engaged in a brutal exchange of attacks in the marquee US Senate race in Pennsylvania, leaving the race in a dead heat, Republicans are preparing to drop more than $100 million across the airwaves in the final two months of the campaign.

The staggering sum, which accounts to roughly $40 million more than Casey and his allies are preparing so far, gives McCormick the biggest edge on the airwaves of any Senate candidate in the campaign’s home stretch. Up until this point, both sides had spent similar levels on air, with Casey holding the advantage.

“I think I’m the underdog,” Casey, a three-term incumbent with a long history in Pennsylvania politics, told CNN after a Philadelphia rally with union workers. “Those corporate super PACs that are coming in here, that have already begun to attack me all summer long, those expenditures are going to go up exponentially.”

While Casey still predicted he would pull off a November victory and contended that he didn’t “care what they spend,” he said: “I don’t have a personal super PAC funded by Wall Street billionaires. … It’s going to be a really difficult race to win.”

Casey’s comments underscore the larger Democratic struggle to keep control of the Senate. They need to hold all their seats – other than West Virginia, which is almost certain to flip to the GOP – in order to simply keep a 50-50 Senate. And that means Democrats can’t afford a slip-up in a purple state like Pennsylvania, given they already have to defend seats in red states like Ohio and Montana.

To avoid that outcome, Casey has been launching a barrage of attacks going after McCormick’s character – a tactic Democrats are using in swing states across the country in an effort to court split-ticket voters. But as Casey attacks McCormick’s tenure running a major Wall Street hedge fund, and his past residency in Connecticut, the Republican and his allies are seeking to nationalize the race and tie their foe to Vice President Kamala Harris, the border and inflation.

“The reason the race is closing is that Sen. Casey is just out of touch with Pennsylvania,” McCormick said in an interview here in an eastern Pennsylvania town where Trump won 60% of the vote in 2020. “He’s been a weak senator.”

To amplify those attacks, McCormick is benefiting from something other candidates lack: His own super PAC funded by well-heeled donors. Indeed, of the $101 million McCormick and his GOP allies plan to spend on the air, the Keystone Renewal PAC has reserved $66 million in the final two months of the campaign – more than the $64 million Casey and his allies are reserving to spend during that same timeframe, according to AdImpact data. That super PAC has been bankrolled by billionaire financiers like Ken Griffin and Paul Singer, who have donated $10 million and $2 million, respectively, according to federal records.

And McCormick has another benefit: His own deep pockets. Asked if he would pump his own cash into the campaign in the final months, McCormick noted he’s “already been a big investor,” pointing to public filings that show he spent $4 million so far on his campaign.

“I expect to continue to be an investor, and I believe in me. So I’m investing in me,” McCormick said. “But this will be the most expensive race in the country. And so I’m going to need lots of help.”

McCormick added: “I’m running against a three-term incumbent that’s been around for a long time. He’s a very big name in Pennsylvania. So I think I’m the underdog.”

The Trump and Harris factor

Both candidates have calculated that it makes sense politically to align themselves with the top of their tickets, even if some of their standard bearer’s positions put them in a difficult political spot.

McCormick, who has never held elected office before, lost the 2022 Senate primary to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who Donald Trump backed, in a fiercely contested race where the former president repeatedly berated McCormick.

But McCormick has since made amends with Trump, winning the former president’s backing and stumping with Trump at the Republican National Convention and at stops throughout Pennsylvania. Indeed, McCormick was about to take the stage at the July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Trump told him to wait back another moment. Moments later, a gunman tried to kill the former president.

“Yeah,” McCormick said when asked here if he thinks it could have been him shot at during the rally. “I didn’t think at the time. Then, I got home at night and talked to all six of my daughters, and they were freaked out.”

Yet McCormick’s alliance with Trump has some limits.

Asked if he believed Trump’s claims that the 2020 Pennsylvania election was stolen, McCormick said he believed Joe Biden was the winner.

“One of the things I had said before was that President Biden was our president. He had won the election. I don’t believe the election was stolen,” McCormick said. “So President Trump and I don’t agree on everything, but we agree on a lot of things.”

Asked if he considered himself a MAGA Republican, McCormick said:  “You know, I consider myself a Dave McCormick Republican. I have time and again, laid out my positions. My positions are very much in line with what President Trump has said on policies.”

Casey sees it differently.

“He’s genuflecting to Trump all the time,” Casey said of McCormick, pointing out that Trump attacked him as a “liberal Wall Street Republican” during the 2022 campaign, an issue spotlighted in Democratic attack ads.

Yet, Casey has to navigate his own top-of-the-ticket issues – namely Harris’ more progressive positions, including her previous support for banning the fossil-fuel extraction procedure known as fracking, an issue that carries particular resonance in Pennsylvania. Casey is now applauding Harris’ reversal – she now says she wouldn’t ban fracking – and appeared with her and President Joe Biden on the stump at last week’s Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh.

Asked why he’s aligning himself with Harris, as other vulnerable Democrats have shied away from her, Casey said: “Look, in this state, her campaign already has brought a real lift to the turnout dynamics. A lot of young voters are more engaged now than they were. She’s running a really strong campaign. I’ve known her a long time in the Senate.”

But he wouldn’t call himself a Biden-Harris Democrat, nor would he spell out the issues where he diverges from the Democratic nominee.

“I’m not going to try to itemize issues that we might have not total agreement on,” he said.

McCormick defends his tenure on Wall Street

McCormick’s success on Wall Street has become a double-edged sword in the race, as Casey launches an array of attacks on his tenure at Bridgewater Associates – particularly its investments in China while he ran the hedge fund.

From 2017-2021 – the period that McCormick ran Bridgewater – the company’s investments in China grew by 108%, including investing in a Chinese firm legally producing fentanyl.

In the interview, McCormick said that his company’s overall investment in China amounted to 3% of the firm’s global investment strategy, arguing it’s common for any such company to invest in China.

“You have 30% of things in your home that are from China,” he said, arguing that Casey’s record on immigration and border security is a reason for the fentanyl crisis rather than his company’s work. “There’s no global firm in the world that that doesn’t have exposure to China. And tens of millions of Pennsylvanians, tens of millions of Americans have investments across the globe, some of which are in China.”

But Casey said 3% is “a hell of a lot of money.” Asked if he sees the race turning on character, more than the issues, Casey said: “Well, I think it will turn on what you’ve done with your life. … So I’ve been working for the people in Pennsylvania. He’s been making money investing in China and working on Wall Street. “

McCormick shot back, saying Casey “doesn’t have a record to run on,” noting that the Democrat’s campaign spent more on attack ads than he has so far in the campaign.

“Sen. Casey is running scared,” McCormick said.

An evolution on abortion

Democrats have also been eager to spotlight past comments McCormick made in the 2022 primary. Indeed, when he was on the debate stage in 2022, he specified his view on abortion, indicating he opposed the procedure, noting: “I believe in the very rare instances there should be exceptions for life of the mother.”

Since he did not mention two other abortion exceptions – for rape and incest – that comment has been the centerpiece of a multimillion dollar Democratic ad campaign on the issue.

Asked last week why he only singled out life of the mother, and not an exception for rape or incest, McCormick told CNN: “I said before the debate, after the debate over and over again that I support all three exceptions. In the debate, I didn’t say I was against the other exceptions. I simply said that I was for that exception.”

But McCormick, who said he still opposes codifying Roe v. Wade, said he’s “not in favor of national legislation” and that the states should decide their policies rather than Congress.

Casey also has long harbored anti-abortion views despite being a Democrat – and is the son of a two-term governor, Bob Casey Sr., a staunch Catholic who signed one of the most stringent abortion laws in the country in 1989, leading to a landmark Supreme Court decision. The elder Casey was even denied a speaking slot in the 1992 Democratic convention over the issue.

And in 2002, when the younger Casey mounted an unsuccessful bid for governor, he made his position clear, saying in a radio interview at the time that his view has “always been a pro-life position.”

“My position has always been favoring the one exception – for the life of the mother,” Casey said 22 years ago.

But in the interview last week, Casey suggested that his view has changed in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, saying that he supports “restoring the rights of Roe.”

Asked if he still considers himself to be “pro-life,” Casey said: “I don’t think those terms mean much anymore. I really think that the choice now before the American people is if you support a ban, which means you support the overturning of Roe and all that comes with it, or you support this right, which I do.”

CNN’s David Wright, Morgan Rimmer and Sheden Tesfaldet contributed to this report.

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