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Dave McCormick, the Republican challenger for Pennsylvania’s coveted U.S. Senate seat, accomplished a 67-county tour of the Keystone State on Friday.
It’s not fairly the “full Grassley” of presidential politics, when candidates go to all 99 counties forward of the Iowa caucuses, however with President Biden and former President Trump in a dead-heat for Pennsylvania and the Senate majority within the steadiness, each level and all 67 counties depend.
After 42,000 miles. McCormick celebrated the final of his 345 stops at an Italian restaurant in Matamoras. In an occasion on the Friday afternoon earlier than Memorial Day Weekend, he delivered a stump speech to about 30 supporters over pizza and soda.
“I used to be so excited to have the ability to plant the flag at this time as a result of it is simply the demonstrated dedication to being throughout our nice Commonwealth and seeing folks in all these communities,” McCormick advised Fox Information in an unique interview after his Pike County cease on Friday. “I feel you marketing campaign the way in which you are going to be a senator, and I will be a senator that represents all of Pennsylvania, not simply the city areas.”
McCormick’s opponent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey has a two-point edge within the race, in line with polling carried out April 28 to Could 9 by The New York Instances, Siena School and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
McCormick’s marketing campaign milestone comes as a Broad + Liberty report accused Casey of mendacity about visiting all 67 counties annually. The report used X posts as a metric to tally Casey’s marketing campaign stops throughout the commonwealth, concluding that Casey solely visited 39 counties since January 2023. Based mostly on inside paperwork obtained by Fox Information, Casey visited all 67 counties in 2022, however fell quick at 63 counties in 2023.
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Dave McCormick, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, data a video alongside the U.S. – Mexico border after receiving a briefing from officers, in Yuma, Arizona on Could 18, 2024. (Dave McCormick Senate marketing campaign )
A spokesperson for Casey emphasised the significance of high quality visits over the amount of visits and mentioned not all of those marketing campaign stops are posted on-line. His Senate workplace tracks the primary and final go to to every county yearly. As an illustration, in 2023, Casey visited Lehigh County for the primary time on Jan. 6, 2023, and his final go to was on Dec. 21, 2023. And that’s to not say he didn’t go to Lehigh County a number of occasions in between. McCormick isn’t satisfied.
“He mentioned that he visits each county yearly,” McCormick advised Fox Information on Friday. “So, you realize, he can present you the proof. We do not see any proof that he visits each county yearly.”
To McCormick, the county controversy goes past rumour. He says it’s about exhibiting up for Pennsylvanians all throughout the commonwealth.
“It is a variety of instances the place Bob Casey says one factor and does one other,” McCormick advised Fox Information on Friday. “He stands up and says his and Biden’s insurance policies are going to cut back inflation. After which in a room, he will get caught on tape saying, hey, hear, there’s nothing we are able to do to decrease costs. Or he says he is for insurance policies that make sure that we supply from American industries, after which he votes and waives exceptions on them as a result of he and Biden’s insurance policies on EVs aren’t adequately supported by U.S. trade. So again and again, Bob Casey says one factor and does one other, and so I do not assume he is been forthright with the folks of Pennsylvania.”
McCormick, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, persistently ties Casey to President Biden. A day after accepting the Republican nomination, McCormick launched an advert slamming Casey for voting with Biden “98 p.c” of the time.
“Bob Casey’s lack of visiting these counties, his lie on that is additionally consultant of why he is out of step with most Pennsylvanians, and that is why most Pennsylvanians cannot identify a single factor that Bob Casey’s completed,” McCormick continued final Friday. “They can not imagine that he is voted 98% of the time with Joe Biden. So the connection I am making is the lie on the county visits along with his positions being more and more liberal, more and more bowing to the progressive left and more and more out of step with Pennsylvania. That is the connection.”
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks throughout the Inaugural Independence Dinner in Philadelphia, on Nov. 1, 2019. (Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto through Getty Pictures)
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Simply forward of the Pennsylvania main, McCormick was the Senate candidate dodging accusations of mendacity. A New York Instances report discovered that McCormick embellished particulars about his upbringing, notably about rising up on a Pennsylvania farm. McCormick has denied these allegations, his background emblematic of his Senate marketing campaign and a fixture of that stump speech.
“My of us had a household farm,” McCormick advised the group in Pike County Friday. “They lived on the town in Bloomsburg. My dad labored on the faculty, however I baled hay. I trimmed Christmas timber. I used to be a busboy on the lodge. I used to be a paperboy with two paper routes. I performed soccer. I wrestled. I hunted.”
Pennsylvania Democrats have seized each alternative to name McCormick a liar, accusing McCormick of jet-setting into Pennsylvania to marketing campaign and nicknaming him “Connecticut Dave” for renting a house in Westport, Connecticut.
“I do not assume he is been truthful to folks about dwelling in Pennsylvania. He lives in Connecticut in a $16 million home,” Casey advised Fox Information in an unique interview in April. “I feel that is sort of a sample of falsely representing one thing so primary about the place you reside and the place you as soon as lived. I do not know why he would make reference to his upbringing in a approach that wasn’t totally truthful. He has so much to be pleased with. He is achieved so much in his life, and he ought to discuss what he is achieved as an alternative of attempting to create this picture that I suppose at one level he made reference to being a farmer, which is mindless in any respect. I simply assume you ought to be truthful and sincere with the folks that you just’re searching for to characterize.”
When pressed by Fox Information why Pennsylvania voters ought to belief McCormick’s phrase over Casey’s, McCormick mentioned he’s not one to shrink back from criticism. He’s urging Casey to do the identical.
“I am a Pennsylvanian, a seventh technology Pennsylvanian,” McCormick mentioned. “I grew up right here. I left right here to go to the army, to go to West Level, after which to serve in fight. I got here again and created jobs, and that is the background and expertise of management I will run on. Bob Casey ought to reply this query. He was clearly caught in a lie. I am blissful to reply any query. And, you realize, politics is a contact sport, however I will reply any query forthrightly about my background and why I feel I’ll serve the folks of Pennsylvania properly.”
Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick launches a marketing campaign bus tour, in Lititz, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 10, 2024 (Dave McCormick marketing campaign)
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In the meantime, Casey’s marketing campaign is attempting to flip the script on McCormick.
“Senator Casey is understood for his integrity and what he’s delivered for the Commonwealth, in the meantime Connecticut mega-millionaire David McCormick has been mendacity about every little thing from the place he lives, to the main points of his upbringing, to his report of investing hundreds of thousands in Chinese language army firms,” Kate Good, a spokesperson for Casey for Senate, shared with Fox Information on Friday.
With 5 months till the overall election, there’s no signal of the mudslinging (or the marketing campaign bus) slowing down for these Pennsylvania candidates.