In more troubling news for the Democratic Party, a longstanding incumbent Senate Democrat is losing substantial ground in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania. Recent polling shows that Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr (D-PA) has watched his lead dissipate as Republican challenger Dave McCormick has encroached on the incumbent.
For months, Casey had maintained a several point lead over McCormick. However, this margin has now shrunk to an average of 2 points, well within the margin of error, as Election Day fast approaches. Furthermore, a recent GOP poll indicated that Case and McCormick were roughly tied at 47% with the Republican candidate have a slight 0.4% lead.
At the national level, the same polling showed that former President Donald Trump had a 3-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race. Corroborating this, another poll from AtlasIntel earlier this month also found that Trump leads the state by 3 points and McCormick by 1 point, with a margin of error of 2 points.
Cook Political Report Senate analyst Jessica Taylor opined on the prospects in Pennsylvania, writing, “Both parties’ private polling shows businessman David McCormick shoring up the GOP base and making gains in the western part of the state, particularly in and around Allegheny County/Pittsburgh, where he now lives.” The political forecaster now rates the senate race as a toss-up from leaning Democrat.
Furthermore, former President Trump appears to be gaining support from the blue-collar voting demographic in the swing state. “Casey’s hold on his blue-collar base may be slipping,” Taylor added. Trump has campaigned hard for the the blue-collar and union vote, highlighting the potential consequences of a Kamala Harris presidency on domestic industry.
According to National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Philip Letsou, the GOP understood that Pennsylvania was up for grabs “when Bob Casey started running ads claiming he was President Trump’s best friend even though he voted to impeach him twice.” He continued, “Bob Casey is desperately trying to throw Kamala Harris under the bus to save his own political career — it won’t work.”
The American Tribune recently reported on other good news in Pennsylvania, where the Republican Party has seen a double-digit swing in mail-in ballot return data. Cliff Maloney, who leads a conservative activist group called Pennsylvania Chase, explained, “The PA Chase is working. How do I know that? Not only from anecdotal conversations and direct feedback at the door but let’s look at the numbers. If we compare 2020 at this time, compared to today for 2024, here are the specifics: Democrats are at 514,000 returns, Republicans are at 215,000 returns.”
He continued, “Remember that Trump only lost Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes. Republicans are trending up 90,000, Democrats are down let’s say, 40,000 in a state that had a delta of 80,000. That’s why I’m very confident, but we’ve got to finish hard, we’ve got to go all in. We can not sit back on our heels, this is time to double down.”
Explaining the monumental importance of getting ahead in the swing state, Maloney continued, “In 2020, Trump lost by 80,000 votes, but 141,000 Republicans requested a mail-in ballot and never sent it back. The PA Chase aims to fix that problem, and we feel if we fix the problem, we win PA. We win PA, we win the entire White House.”
Watch ABC News concede that this Pennsylvania county is “Trump country”:
Featured image credit: Jewish Democratic Council of America, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JDCA_2024_Leadership_Summit_-_Bob_Casey_(53815625299).jpg
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