The Key to Winning the Keystone State

Senator-elect, Dave McCormick (R-PA). Photo courtesy of Friends of Dave McCormick.

How did Dave McCormick beat Doug Casey in Pennsylvania’s Senate race in 2024? Much of the victory must be attributed to Donald Trump’s dogged campaigning in the state and his rising tide that lifted all ships. However, McCormick also put in a lot of work and money and executed his plan. At The New York Sun, Salena Zito explains McCormick’s strategy, writing:

So how did a West Point graduate from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, go from losing an agonizingly close, contentious Republican Senate primary two years ago to Dr. Mehmet Oz to winning against Mr. Casey, whose family has been a Pennsylvania political institution for four decades? It all began with focus and an interview conducted in his Pittsburgh living room days after he lost that first race.

At the time, Mr. McCormick said he was unsure if he would try another race.

Within just more than a year, he was in. The first thing he did was what many chief executives do when forming a board of directors: He formed a team of professionals from very different backgrounds and experiences who had never worked together. This is a risky business in politics, where a campaign team usually comes as a package deal.

The Pittsburgh-based chief strategist, Mr. Harris, was hired first. He came from the political orbit of Senator Toomey. Mr. Todd, whom Mr. McCormick dubbed “the chief storyteller,” was hired on Labor Day 2023. He came from the world of Republican Senators Scott of Florida, Hawley, and Tillis. Messrs. Gregory and Gruda were strategists for Senator Rubio.

Mr. Todd, a Tennessee native and founding partner of OnMessage who coauthored “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” in 2018, said it’s impossible to overstate the importance of their team not having a contested primary.

“That is all a testament to Dave’s nature and his work ethic,” Mr. Todd said. “He did not get mad and let people who weren’t for him become enemies from the first race. He just kept working on relationships.”

In those early days traveling across the state, you could see Mr. McCormick sitting down and listening to people who did not support him. He never acted like anyone owed him anything, even though it would have been easy to adopt an “I told you so” pose after Dr. Oz lost badly to Senator Fetterman in 2022. He also engaged in small, off-year elections for local offices, thus building more relationships.

Then came the hard part: how to run against a man who, with the exception of one primary race for governor in 2002, had won handily in every statewide race he had run, including for state auditor general, state treasurer, and the Senate. Add the kicker that Mr. Casey had the same name as his late father, a beloved centrist Democrat governor of the state. From 30,000 feet, a win against Mr. Casey seemed daunting.

Mr. Todd said he and Mr. Harris found out really quickly in research that Mr. Casey’s strength was overstated.

“He was a mile wide and an inch deep,” Mr. Todd explained. “A lot of people were familiar with his name, but nobody was familiar with anything he had done or was working on doing.”

In short, Mr. Casey had no political equity.

Read more here.