Republican Dave McCormick vowed to win in his bid to unseat Democrat Bob Casey in Pennsylvania’s bitterly contested U.S. Senate race during a rally Tuesday in Doylestown Borough.
About 75 people attended the campaign event at the Bucks County Republican Party’s headquarters to hear McCormick say “America is in deep, deep trouble...Eighty percent of Americans and Pennsylvanians don’t think the country is going in the right direction. The progressive left is taking America over a cliff.”
The crowd applauded when the hedge fund executive said “Casey voted with Biden ninety-nine percent of the time. Casey and Biden are one in the same.”
While McCormick narrowly lost his primary run for the seat in the 2022 to celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, he told the crowd Tuesday, “I know I’m going to win.”
Oz went on to lose to Democrat John Fetterman in the general election.
Saying he has the support of U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and state Rep. Scott Perry, McCormick declared, “We are united as a party.” He’s also been endorsed by Trump.
The country needs leadership, said the decorated Army veteran. “Casey is the opposite of a leader. He does not represent Pennsylvania.”
Sen. Casey, the son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey Sr., has served three terms in the Senate. Many political observers believe this election will be his toughest, as the balance of the Senate runs, in part, through Pennsylvania.
For his part, McCormick, 58, said, “I’ve never been elected to public office. I don’t owe anyone anything. Not Trump, not Mitch McConnell.”
During a question and answer period, an audience member told McCormick, “Abortion is a losing issue. As a party, we have to say ok” to abortion.
As the father of six daughters, McCormick said, “I’m not for either extreme. I believe it’s a state’s right.” Exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother should be allowed, he said.
Contraception, added the candidate, “should be widely available.”
Speaking of reproductive rights, on the same day that McCormick visited Bucks County, Casey participated in “Birth Control is On the Ballot,” a virtual event, to discuss the Right to Contraception Act and the fight to protect access to birth control.
McCormick said he believes the military should “take out” cartels in Mexico, preferably with the Mexican government’s backing, but without it, if necessary.
The audience applauded when he said he wants to “refurbish the country’s shipbuilding industry” including in Philadelphia.
“This is the election of a lifetime…get out the vote, mail-in ballots, and save our country,” McCormick said to the enthusiastic crowd.
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