Dave McCormick, the Republican challenger for Pennsylvania’s coveted U.S. Senate seat, finished a 67-county tour of the Keystone State on Friday.
It’s not quite the “full Grassley” of presidential politics, when candidates go to all 99 counties in advance of the Iowa caucuses, but with President Biden and previous President Trump in a lifeless-heat for Pennsylvania and the Senate greater part in the harmony, each and every issue and all 67 counties count.
Immediately after 42,000 miles. McCormick celebrated the final of his 345 stops at an Italian cafe in Matamoras. In an occasion on the Friday afternoon ahead of Memorial Day Weekend, he delivered a stump speech to about 30 supporters around pizza and soda.
“I was so energized to be capable to plant the flag today mainly because it can be just the demonstrated motivation to becoming across our terrific Commonwealth and observing people in all these communities,” McCormick advised Fox Information in an special interview following his Pike County end on Friday. “I consider you campaign the way you happen to be heading to be a senator, and I’m heading to be a senator that signifies all of Pennsylvania, not just the city places.”
McCormick’s opponent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey has a two-stage edge in the race, according to polling conducted April 28 to May possibly 9 by The New York Times, Siena Faculty and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
McCormick’s marketing campaign milestone comes as a Wide + Liberty report accused Casey of lying about going to all 67 counties every single year. The report made use of X posts as a metric to tally Casey’s campaign stops throughout the commonwealth, concluding that Casey only frequented 39 counties because January 2023. Centered on interior paperwork obtained by Fox Information, Casey frequented all 67 counties in 2022, but fell limited at 63 counties in 2023.
Dave McCormick, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, records a video clip along the U.S. – Mexico border soon after getting a briefing from officials, in Yuma, Arizona on May 18, 2024. (Dave McCormick Senate campaign )
A spokesperson for Casey emphasised the relevance of quality visits about the amount of visits and reported not all of these campaign stops are posted online. His Senate business tracks the to start with and past visit to every county just about every yr. For occasion, in 2023, Casey frequented Lehigh County for the initially time on Jan. 6, 2023, and his previous check out was on Dec. 21, 2023. And which is not to say he did not stop by Lehigh County various occasions in involving. McCormick isn’t confident.
“He mentioned that he visits every single county every year,” McCormick explained to Fox Information on Friday. “So, you know, he can show you the proof. We you should not see any evidence that he visits each county just about every year.”
To McCormick, the county controversy goes further than hearsay. He states it’s about showing up for Pennsylvanians all across the commonwealth.
“It truly is a variety of cases exactly where Bob Casey suggests one matter and does one more,” McCormick explained to Fox Information on Friday. “He stands up and states his and Biden’s insurance policies are heading to decrease inflation. And then in a home, he receives caught on tape declaring, hey, pay attention, you will find nothing we can do to decrease charges. Or he suggests he’s for insurance policies that be certain that we resource from American industries, and then he votes and waives exceptions on them for the reason that he and Biden’s policies on EVs usually are not adequately supported by U.S. industry. So time and yet again, Bob Casey states a single issue and does yet another, and so I really don’t consider he is been forthright with the men and women of Pennsylvania.”
McCormick, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, consistently ties Casey to President Biden. A day right after accepting the Republican nomination, McCormick launched an ad slamming Casey for voting with Biden “98 per cent” of the time.
“Bob Casey’s deficiency of traveling to these counties, his lie on this is also consultant of why he is out of action with most Pennsylvanians, and that is why most Pennsylvanians cannot name a solitary factor that Bob Casey’s accomplished,” McCormick continued past Friday. “They cannot believe that he’s voted 98% of the time with Joe Biden. So the relationship I am creating is the lie on the county visits with his positions currently being ever more liberal, significantly bowing to the progressive remaining and increasingly out of action with Pennsylvania. That’s the connection.”
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks throughout the Inaugural Independence Supper in Philadelphia, on Nov. 1, 2019. (Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto through Getty Photos)
Just forward of the Pennsylvania most important, McCormick was the Senate prospect dodging accusations of lying. A New York Situations report identified that McCormick embellished particulars about his upbringing, especially about expanding up on a Pennsylvania farm. McCormick has denied these allegations, his track record emblematic of his Senate campaign and a fixture of that stump speech.
“My individuals had a spouse and children farm,” McCormick explained to the team in Pike County Friday. “They lived in town in Bloomsburg. My dad labored at the university, but I baled hay. I trimmed Xmas trees. I was a busboy at the resort. I was a paperboy with two paper routes. I played soccer. I wrestled. I hunted.”
Pennsylvania Democrats have seized each possibility to simply call McCormick a liar, accusing McCormick of jet-location into Pennsylvania to marketing campaign and nicknaming him “Connecticut Dave” for leasing a property in Westport, Connecticut.
“I don’t feel he’s been truthful to folks about residing in Pennsylvania. He life in Connecticut in a $16 million property,” Casey told Fox News in an exclusive interview in April. “I consider this is variety of a sample of falsely symbolizing something so essential about in which you are living and in which you at the time lived. I don’t know why he would make reference to his upbringing in a way that wasn’t fully truthful. He has a whole lot to be very pleased of. He’s achieved a great deal in his everyday living, and he should speak about what he is accomplished as an alternative of striving to develop this impression that I guess at a person issue he built reference to getting a farmer, which makes no feeling at all. I just think you ought to be truthful and trustworthy with the individuals that you happen to be trying to get to depict.”
When pressed by Fox Information why Pennsylvania voters need to have confidence in McCormick’s term about Casey’s, McCormick reported he’s not one particular to shy away from criticism. He’s urging Casey to do the similar.
“I’m a Pennsylvanian, a seventh generation Pennsylvanian,” McCormick reported. “I grew up listed here. I remaining listed here to go to the navy, to go to West Stage, and then to provide in fight. I arrived again and produced jobs, and which is the history and knowledge of management I am heading to operate on. Bob Casey need to respond to this issue. He was plainly caught in a lie. I am satisfied to response any concern. And, you know, politics is a call activity, but I am going to reply any query forthrightly about my track record and why I imagine I’ll provide the men and women of Pennsylvania nicely.”
Republican Senate applicant Dave McCormick launches a campaign bus tour, in Lititz, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 10, 2024 (Dave McCormick campaign)
Click In this article TO GET THE FOX News App
In the meantime, Casey’s campaign is making an attempt to flip the script on McCormick.
“Senator Casey is recognised for his integrity and what he’s delivered for the Commonwealth, meanwhile Connecticut mega-millionaire David McCormick has been lying about everything from wherever he life, to the facts of his upbringing, to his file of investing tens of millions in Chinese army providers,” Kate Clever, a spokesperson for Casey for Senate, shared with Fox News on Friday.
With 5 months until eventually the normal election, there is no signal of the mudslinging (or the campaign bus) slowing down for these Pennsylvania candidates.
