The victory pads Republicans' majority in the Senate, which they wrested from Democratic control this week, and clocked in as the nation’s second-most expensive race while playing out alongside the presidential contest won by Republican Donald Trump in the nation's premier battleground state.
McCormick, 59, recaptured a GOP seat in Pennsylvania after Republicans lost one in 2022, paying off a bet that party brass made when they urged McCormick to run and consolidated support behind him.
In an interview on Fox News shortly after The Associated Press called the race Thursday, the Trump-endorsed McCormick said “people want change.”
“They're deeply distressed by the skyrocketing prices, the wide-open border, the crime in our cities, the war on fossil fuels, and they want change and common-sense leadership and that's why I think they elected President Trump and I think that's why they have elected me,” McCormick said.
Republican strategists largely credited McCormick's win to Trump's strong performance in Pennsylvania, beating Vice President Kamala Harris by about 2% as Democrats navigated headwinds like voter dissatisfaction over inflation under President Joe Biden.
That was enough to pull McCormick to victory, they said.
Beating Casey is earth-shaking for Pennsylvania’s Democratic establishment. Casey is the namesake of a former two-term governor and Pennsylvania’s longest-serving Democrat ever in the Senate.
Until Tuesday, Casey, 64, had won six statewide general elections going back to 1996, but he had never been on the same ballot as Trump.
