McCormick delivers victory speech in Pittsburgh for U.S. Senate race
With the Associated Press projecting his win over incumbent Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., the apparent Senator-elect Dave McCormick took to the podium Friday, Nov. 8, at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh to deliver a victory speech to the electorate.
“The one message we heard over and over again is we need change,” McCormick said. “The country is headed in the wrong direction.”
McCormick, the Republican challenger to Casey, pledged to make Pennsylvania’s economy work for Pennsylvanians, as he has throughout his campaign, as well as overhaul the state’s energy policy and enact legislation to prevent fentanyl from crossing into Pennsylvania.
“We need leadership to get our economy back on track and to get this horrific inflation under control. We need leadership to secure the border to stop this scourge of fentanyl,” McCormick said.
“We learned time and again that the path to unlocking Pennsylvania’s future is energy. We are uniquely blessed, and we need to have regulations and get rid of red tape and streamline the permitting process and embrace the power of not just natural gas, but all forms of energy.”
Although McCormick has declared victory, Casey and his team have yet to concede the election, as it may still go to an automatic recount if the provisional ballots are counted and enough of them voted for Casey.
Despite the mutual animosity of the election campaign, McCormick did offer some words of gratitude to his opponent.
“The Casey family has served this great commonwealth for more than 50 years,” McCormick said. “My dad worked for Gov. (Bob) Casey (Sr.), Sen. Casey’s father. We obviously had an incredibly hard-fought race, but there’s no doubt that this is a family, and this is a senator in Sen. Casey ... who has served this great commonwealth with honor.”
Butler County was a key contributor to McCormick’s projected victory in the Senate race, as voters here preferred him over Casey by 76,735 votes to 40,375, according to unofficial results.
Shortly before the general election, on Oct. 22, McCormick held a campaign rally at Penn United Technologies in Jefferson Township. His election bus, which bore the signatures of hundreds of supporters, has also been seen crisscrossing the county on numerous occasions.
“We put 100,000 miles on that big old bus … which we’re keeping, by the way,” McCormick said.
When the race results are official, the winner will be sworn into the U.S. Senate at the start of 2025.
Despite his apparent win, McCormick and his team have not stopped fighting. They have filed suit against the Philadelphia Board of Elections to challenge the counting of provisional ballots cast by voters who had previously cast mail-in ballots which were deemed invalid due to lack of a secrecy envelope or other errors.
Casey and his team are looking to those provisional ballots to determine the outcome of the race in their favor.
“The number of provisional ballots expected from areas that favor Sen. Casey, like Philadelphia and its suburbs, is further proof that this race is too close to be called,” said Casey campaign spokesperson Maddy McDaniel in an official statement. “As the McCormick campaign admitted in their own lawsuit this morning, the counting of these ballots could have an ‘impact on the outcome of the election.’
“With more than 100,000 ballots still left to count, we will continue to make sure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard.”
