HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick will face each other in Pennsylvania's high-stakes U.S. Senate contest this fall, as Tuesday's primary election put the men on track for a race that is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and help decide control of the Senate next year.
Casey and McCormick won their respective party primary contests after they were uncontested and now enter what is likely to be a grueling, expensive and hard-fought 2024 general election campaign that culminates in the Nov. 5 vote.
Casey, seeking his fourth term, is perhaps Pennsylvania's best-known politician and a stalwart of the presidential swing state's Democratic Party -- the son of a former two-term governor and Pennsylvania's longest-ever serving Democrat in the Senate.
McCormick is a two-time Senate challenger, a former hedge fund CEO and a Pennsylvania native who spent $14 million of his own money only to lose narrowly to celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022's seven-way GOP primary. Oz then lost to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman in a pivotal Senate contest.
This time around, McCormick has consolidated the party around his candidacy and is backed by a super PAC that's already reported raising more than $20 million, much of it from securities-trading billionaires.
McCormick's candidacy is shaping up as the strongest challenge to Casey in his three reelection bids. McCormick has worked to shore up support in the GOP base, and on Tuesday night hammered his message at his election night gathering in Pittsburgh that Casey is a do-nothing senator.
"We're now turning to the general election and here's the truth: Pennsylvania deserves better than Bob Casey, You deserve better," McCormick said. "Bob Casey's defining achievement in his political life, 30 years in political office, has been to be the son of Bob Casey Sr. That is what defines his political career."
Casey, in Washington on Tuesday to cast votes in favor of $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, said on social media that "there are 196 days until the general election, and we're going to win." Meanwhile, the state Democratic Party unveiled a minute-long digital ad slamming McCormick as a "millionaire hedge fund executive who is lying to Pennsylvanians."
The Senate candidates will share a ticket with candidates for president in a state that is critical to whether Democrats can maintain control of the White House and the Senate.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won their party nominations easily after all major rivals dropped out. Both men made campaign trips to swing-state Pennsylvania in recent days, and voters can expect to see plenty of them, their TV ads and their surrogates campaigning over the next six months in a state that swung from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020.
Of note, however, could be the number of "uncommitted" write-in votes cast in the Democratic primary to protest Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
In the Senate contest, Democrats have attacked McCormick's opposition to abortion rights, his frequent trips to Connecticut's ritzy "Gold Coast," where he keeps a family home, and the focus on investing in China during his dozen years as an executive at the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, including as CEO.
Casey has been a key player for Democrats trying to reframe the election-year narrative about the economy by attacking "greedflation" -- a blunt term for corporations that jack up prices and rip off shoppers to maximize profits -- as fast-rising prices over the past three years have opened a big soft spot in 2024 for Democrats. Indications that the U.S. economy avoided a recession amid efforts to manage inflation have yet to translate into voter enthusiasm for Biden.
McCormick, meanwhile, has accused Casey of rubber-stamping harmful immigration, economic, energy and national security policies of Biden, and made a bid for Jewish voters by traveling to the Israel-Gaza border and arguing that Biden hasn't backed Israel strongly enough in the Israel-Hamas war.
Casey is one of Biden's strongest allies in Congress. McCormick and Trump have endorsed each other, but are an awkward duo atop the GOP's ticket after Trump savaged McCormick in 2022's primary in a successful bid to lift Oz to his primary win.
Democrats currently hold a Senate majority by the narrowest of margins, but face a difficult 2024 Senate map that requires them to defend incumbents in the red states of Montana and Ohio and fight for open seats with new candidates in Michigan and West Virginia.
A Casey loss could guarantee Republican control of the Senate.
Jerome Upchurch reads voter's information in Spanish, posted outside the Fleisher Art Memorial election polling place on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in South Philadelphia. (Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
Republican David McCormick, making his second bid for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, addresses supporters at his election night watch party in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Republican David McCormick, making his second bid for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, addresses supporters at his election night watch party in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Republican David McCormick, left, is joined by his wife Dina Powell after making remarks at his election night watch party in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. McCormick is making his second bid for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, this time to take on Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A voter marks their ballot at a polling place in Bristol, Pa., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican David McCormick, making his second bid for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, addresses supporters at his election night watch party in Pittsburgh, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Republican David McCormick, center, making his second bid for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, greets supporters at his election night watch party in Pittsburgh, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Republican David McCormick, making his second bid for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, addresses supporters at his election night watch party in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato leaves her polling place in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Arturo Fernandez/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)